1865 · New York
by Catlin, George
New York: Currier & Ives, 1865. Color lithograph, approximately 17 x 22 3/4 inches. Light toning, extensive foxing. Good plus. A very rare Currier and Ives print after an image from George Catlin's famed NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN PORTFOLIO. Nathaniel Currier & James Ives, the most successful American print publishers of their era, published 24 of 25 of Catlin's images; all are now particularly rare. They began producing their own lithographs after Catlin's images around the end of Civil War. The image is redrawn, so evidently new lithographic stones were created, using one of the earlier editions as a base. The present lithograph reproduces Catlin's well-known "Ball-Play Dance" image of a Choctaw ritual. Gale records the existence of this plate, but does not locate any copies; OCLC locates one copy, in a bound set of the run of Currier and Ives' Catlin plates at Yale. GALE 0383 (Inventory #: WRCAM54381)