Diamond in the Rough
A rare plaster cast related to Edward S. Curtis turns up on ebay and inspires a new bronze casting.
Christopher Cardozo, one of the leading experts and dealers of materials related to photographer and ethnographer Edward S. Curtis, likes to keep his eyes and ears open when it comes to Curtisrelated materials that turn up online. So when an auction listing for an obscure plaster cast popped up ebay, Cardozo’s senses started tingling.
“The owner didn’t know anything about it, and most people wouldn’t know either. I had seen a bronze of the plaster cast at one of Curtis’ grandchildren’s homes, and then another offered online years before,” Cardozo says. “It was a remarkable find.”
The plaster cast was created by Alfred Lenz in 1906 and it was modeled after one of
Curtis’ photographs, Vash Gon – Jicarilla, from 1904. After Curtis commissioned the artist for bronzes, Curtis gifted them to his children and grandchildren, and also sent them to special patrons, including one to J.P. Morgan. “Several of my friends, from time to time, asked for something in the way of a Curtis Indian that could be used, perhaps, in a more general decorative way than a photograph…,” Curtis wrote to Morgan in 1906. “Thinking that you might have a place where you could use a plaque of this kind, and particularly owing to your interest in the work, I am taking the liberty of sending you one of the plaques with my compliments.
I can only add that I hope you will be pleased with it.”
Cardozo, realizing the magnitude of the find, eventually spoke with the ebay seller, who said the cast was in his basement and slated for sale along with hundreds of other items accumulated over the years. It had likely been sitting in the basement undisturbed for a quarter century.
“It was listed on ebay at $49.50. I remember the sale closed on a Saturday and I had my sister, Julie, bidding for me. I had told her she could go up pretty high on the bids,” Cardozo says. “After it ended I checked back in with her to see if I was paying $50 or $5,000. The auction ended at $49.50.”
Since the 2019 acquisition of the plaster cast, Cardozo has commissioned new versions of the bronze that he is offering along with his other Curtis materials.
“We couldn’t use the original plaster cast because there was an outside chance it could get damaged, so we started from scratch using the original bronze as our guiding light,” he says. “We did some experimenting with some different designs and decided to do something more simplified. We’re doing a small edition of it, somewhere between 8 and 12, and we’ve already sold one to a prominent Curtis collector.”
For more information visit www.edwardcurtis.com.