Who painted Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate?

Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate was painted by Edward S. Curtis in 1904.

Where can I see Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate?

Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate is held by Cleveland Museum of Art.

Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate by Edward S. Curtis (1904)

Accession no.: 1995.203.36.31
Credit line: Presented by Mrs. James H. Hoyt, Elton Hoyt, II, and Mrs. Amasa Stone Mather in memory of James H. Hoyt

About this work

The buildings on the hill look like ruins, but they might have been homes or storage spaces.

This photo shows a dry, rocky landscape with old stone buildings on a hill. Below, rows of small plants stretch across the land, and a dirt path winds through them. The sky is pale, and the whole scene looks quiet and empty.

The artist took this in 1904 as part of a project documenting Native American life. The buildings on the hill look like ruins, but they might have been homes or storage spaces.

Next, check out Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868–1952) to see more of his work.

Overview

Created in 1904, 'Portfolio XVI, Plate 574: Paguate' is a photogravure by Edward S. Curtis, serving as a component of his monumental twenty-volume series, 'The North American Indian.' The image documents the landscape of Paguate, a village within the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. Visually, the composition captures a high-desert environment characterized by arid, rocky terrain and traditional stone structures situated on an elevated ridge.

In the foreground, orderly rows of cultivated crops stretch across the valley floor, intersected by a winding dirt path that guides the viewer's eye through the scene. The pale sky and muted tonal range of the photogravure process emphasize the quiet, expansive atmosphere of the setting. Curtis produced this work during the height of his career-long endeavor to record the cultures, customs, and environments of Native American peoples before they were perceived to vanish.

This plate specifically contributes to the documentation of Pueblo life and agriculture, reflecting Curtis's method of combining ethnographic detail with romanticized landscape aesthetics to create a comprehensive visual archive of the American West.

Subject & Meaning

The photograph captures a desolate landscape where weathered stone buildings sit atop a hill, suggesting former habitation or storage facilities now in ruin. Below, thin rows of hardy plants and a winding path convey a sense of quiet persistence in an otherwise empty environment, hinting at the intersection of human settlement and the harshness of the surrounding desert.

Technique & Style

Curtis employed early 20th‑century photographic processes, likely a glass‑plate negative, to render fine tonal gradations across the scene. The composition balances vertical elements of the hill and structures with horizontal expanses of land, while the soft, pale sky creates a subdued atmosphere that emphasizes texture over dramatic lighting.

History & Provenance

Created during Curtis’s multi‑decade project to document Indigenous peoples of the United States, the plate was later acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it remains part of the museum’s photography holdings. Its inclusion in Portfolio XVI reflects Curtis’s systematic approach to cataloguing varied regional settings.

Context

The image was taken at Paguate, a settlement historically associated with the Pueblo peoples of New Mexico. In the early 1900s, such sites were undergoing significant change, and Curtis’s work aimed to preserve visual evidence of architecture and landscapes that were rapidly disappearing under federal policies and modernization.