Portfolio size from Volume II of The North American Indian, Plate 48 (1907), hand-pulled photogravure on tissue by John Andrew & Son

Curtis created this intimate portrait of a young Tohono O’odham girl, draped in a shawl, her gaze both direct and contemplative. Labeled as "a particularly fine-looking Papago girl of as nearly pure blood as can be found in the region," the ‘particularly fine’ print reflects early 20th-century ideas of ethnic authenticity and visual classification. Through soft tonalities and a refined composition, the photogravure captures both the individuality of its subject and the broader aesthetic ambitions of Curtis’s project. While his work remains a crucial visual record of Indigenous cultures, it also prompts reflection on the framing and assumptions embedded within ethnographic photography.