This portrait of Chief Joseph was copyrighted in 1903 by Edward S. Curtis. It was likely taken when Chief Joseph visited Curtis in November of 1903 at his studio in Seattle. A second portrait was taken with Chief Joseph wearing his eagle feather war bonnet, at the same sitting. This second portrait was part of the book The Vanishing Race with platinum plates which sold for $3,000 when it was published. Chief Joseph had traveled to Seattle to lobby for the return of his tribe’s homeland in Oregon. A leader of the Nez Perce for many years he did not succeed in his quest that year, and would die on September 21, 1904, at his home on the Colville Reservation.