27 gold-colored photographs, including scenes of landscapes, portraits, and related prints. Includes forged orotones, "Raychromes", "silvertones", and maki-e.
Notable for their warm, rich color tone and depth, orotones—sometimes called goldtones—were a popular print process during American Arts and Crafts movement. Edward S. Curtis, his brother Asahel Curtis, and other Pacific Northwest photographers were early practitioners of orotones, and for this reason, orotones often depict natural landmarks, Native Alaskans, and Native Americans. Orotones were not limited to American photographers, however, and many studios created similar processes around the world.
Technological breakthroughs in the late 19th century allowed for and popularized glass plate positives, where a negative is projected onto a dry, silver-gelatin plate of sensitized glass. Most glass plate prints took the form of lantern slides and opaltypes (positives on white-translucent ("milk") glass). Orotones, by contrast, add a gold-colored coating behind the image surface (either painted onto the emulsion side of the glass plate, brushed onto to a piece of backing affixed to the plate, or through the wet collodion plate process) to give them their signature aesthetic.
Different gold-colored liquids were used to create orotones. The preeminent photographer credited for refining the orotone process, Edward S. Curtis, purportedly applied a viscous mixture of banana oil infused with gold bronzing powder to the dried emulsion. Others used resins blended with bronze powders of copper and zinc. Gold automobile paint was also reportedly used.
Major variations to the orotone process include "silvertones," which replicated the process using silver-colored liquids; hand-colored orotones, which applied paints or tints after printing; and prints on non-glass media, such as lacquer.
Arranged in 5 series.
Selected images can be viewed on the Libraries' Digital Collections website. Permission of Curator required to view originals. Contact Special Collections for more information.
Restrictions may exist on reproduction, quotation, or publication. Contact Special Collections, University of Washington Libraries for details.
Acquired through a variety of sources.
Item 14: A.J. Smith & Company, Seattle, WA, 2008.
Items 2-3: E. M. Slater.
Items 6-7, 16, 21: Curtright & Son Tribal Art, Tacoma, WA, 2009.
PH2012-005: KaufmaNelson Vintage Photographs, Bainbridge Island, WA, 2011.
D18249-2017022202: Julian Christodoulides, February 17, 2017.
GL1-3: (1) Voyager Press Rare Books, May 22, 2018, and (2) Julian Christodoulides, May 23, 2018.
PH482 Asahel Curtis photographs.
PH1639 Edward S. Curtis North American Indian photogravure plates.
PH2007-038 James B. Barton photographs.
Brush marks from application of gold backing visible through image.
Scratches in gold backing.
Negative: 4-3/4" x 5".
Probably Central or Eastern Washington.
Fragments of glass missing along bottom of plate. Two hairline fractures extend into image.
Smaller transparency of item 1a.
Lawrence Denny Lindsley (March 18, 1878—January 3, 1975) was a photographer, writer, and business owner; the grandson of early Seattle settler David T. Denny. Famous for his many photos of Mount Rainier, the Lake Chelan region, Snoqualmie Pass, and other areas (and the lengthy captions he prepared for them), he extensively studied mountainous species in Washington state that were unknown by Western scientists. During his career, he worked with both Asahel and Edward Curtis, and helped to develop the orotone print process.
Written on verso: Dorothy's Pic 89856.
Jesse Tuomley Banfield (June 16, 1877—September 15, 1946) was a pictorial and landscape photographer from California. His work was exhibited throughout the United States and Europe throughout the early 20th century. In 1929, he jointly incorporated his studio in San Francisco, the Banfield-Hullinger Company, with support from fellow photographers Arthur Pillsbury, and his sister Aetheline Banfield.
Not the so-called "Lone Cypress" also found at Pebble Beach in Monterey.
Written on verso: D'Oretype Print[...] 501-503 Geary Street San Francisco Calif.[...] Number 8188.
"D'oretype" is a hyperforeign term for "orotone" used by Banfield-Hullinger Co. on their orotone prints. The phrase is probably emulating Italian or French grammar.
Oliver Scott (O.S.) Van Olinda was a journalist and
photographer who lived on Vashon Island, Washington. Born in La Salle County,
Illinois, he moved from Nebraska to Vashon Island, Washington, and became
involved with publishing. He typeset weekly papers, edited others, and managed
wireless stations while serving as historian of the Vashon-Maury Pioneer
Society over the course of his career. He wrote the first book chronicling the
settler history of Vashon Island,
Bottom right corner is detached, held in place by a black tape edging.
Shows Carbon Glacier, one of the sources for the Carbon River.
Minimal wear.
Scalloped frame.
Possibly Asahel or Edward Curtis.
Probably Asahel or Edward Curtis.
James B. Barton was a photographer living and working in Seattle from approximately 1900 until the late 1960s. He is listed in the city directory variously as a bookeeper, collector, photographer, salesman and insurance agent. James B. Barton and his brother Arthur formed the Barton Brothers photography studio.
Cropped version of item 11.
From left, Pinnacle Point, Plummer Point, Denman Point, Lane Point, Chutla Point, Eagle Point. Shows Paradise River.
Gray-colored film along borders of orotone plate, primarily along two vertical borders and bottom.
Tabletop bronze frame stamped with repeating leaf design along borders, sides, and hanger.
Black velvet and chocolate brown leather back insert with tabletop pop-out stand.
The cardboard insert between the orotone plate and the velvet/leather back insert appears to be a cutout from an Edward S. Curtis advertisement, the legible words reading "SLIDES" and "Mr. Curtis'."
Black leather case lined in gold-toned velvet and silk and indented for holding orotone and frame.
Written on photo: [...] ESC2540.
Gesso and gold paint missing from upper left corner of bat wing frame. Black backing not contemporary with creation.
Frame in the "bat wing" Art Nouveau style, gilt on interior and exterior edges, with dark blue details.
Beverly Bennet "B.B." Dobbs (1868—1937) was a non-Native photographer and filmmaker in Alaska and Washington State. He is believed to be one of the first individuals to have used motion picture film north of the Arctic Circle.
Dobbs moved to Nome, Alaska in 1900, and entered photography after achieving little success during the Nome Gold Rush (1899-1909). Dobbs photographed landscapes in the Nome area, including within the Seward Peninsula, as well as Native Alaskans in these places. His photographs of Native Alaskans garnered him national attention.
Near the end of the Nome Gold Rush, Dobbs found success using motion picture film, and soon moved to Seattle to pursue filmmaking. In 1911, he sold his photographic negative collection to the Lomen Brothers Co., who later issued some of his work under their company name.
Sitŋasuaq (Nome) is the contemporary location of this photograph, and this child is probably an ancestor of people in, or descendent from, Inupiaq lands.
A resurgance of interest in Edward Curtis'
Modern wood frame, stained black. Inner rim of gold-painted metal surrounding window. Cream-colored mat surrounds six orotone plates.
This compilation of counterfeit orotones are some of E. Curtis'
most famous images from the
According to advertising catalogs from Curtis's Seattle studio
published between 1917 and 1920, auction listings, and gallery catalogs, only
five of the seven forged images are known to have been produced as orotones:
From left,
Cropped reversal of authentic image with poor image quality due to its enlargement.
Frame in the "bat wing" Art Nouveau style, gilt corners. Painted brown with gold-metallic paint accents along gesso ridges on frame face.
Material attached on verso suggests this item was created in
Edward Curtis' Los Angeles studio, but attribution is inconclusive. The
descriptive label, or legend, applied to the back of the frame is a crude copy
of the genuine provenance for
The term "raychrome" was coined by Norman S. Edson (1876—1968), a photographer, painter, poet, and violinist, to refer to this own style of hand-colored orotones. Born to painter Allan Edson, he spent much of his photographic career in the Seattle area and is best known for his hand-colored prints, the process for which he unsuccessfully tried to patent.
Image colors vibrant, good condition.
Original frame backing removed. Orotone plate secured inside frame with a piece of cardboard and masking tape.
Original wood frame, gilt along edges, painted in a marble texture blue and gold along face. Squiggles incised along edges.
"Silvertones" are completed using a silver-colored compound, as opposed to the gold-tones found in orotones, and produce cool, deep contrasts.
Arthur Clarence Pillsbury (October 9, 1870—March 5, 1946) was a photographer and inventor, best known for inventing time lapse photography, and the panorama camera. His landscapes of Yosemite National Park, photos of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and time lapse photography of flowers were widely-acclaimed and distributed on postcards by the Pillsburys Pictures Company. He often worked with his adopted son, Jesse T. Banfield.
Gilbert Morris Taylor (1894—1967) was a Canadian-American photographer. He studied photography in Minnesota before moving to Atlin, British Columbia, to start work as a professional photographer. He is well known for a series of photographs published on postcard by his G. Morris Taylor Photography Shop in 1948.
Hanbeh Mizuno (1852—1920) was a Japanese photographer and inventor who invented maki-e photography: a process for rendering photographs on lacquer using gold leaf. He was granted a patent for his "gold leaf photography" process on December 26, 1891 and won numerous awards while exhibiting throughout Japan, at the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893), at the Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1900), and at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition (Portland, OR, 1905).
Photographic maki-e differs significantly from the orotone process. In photographic maki-e, a photo sensitive mixture (Mizuno used gum arabic, honey, and potassium bicarbonate) sits on a transfer medium and is exposed to a negative. Tints or metallic leaf are then added to the positive, which absorbs it in proportion to exposure. The photo layer is then affixed to a piece of lacquerware and varnished.