James Joshua and his wife are portrayed in full ceremonial regalia in this cabinet card produced by A. Pickel at the Umatilla Art Gallery in Athena, Oregon, almost certainly in the 1880s or early 1890s, when the studio was active serving the Umatilla Reservation community nearby. The format, mount style, and ornate lower imprint border are consistent with cabinet card production of that decade.

Joshua is seated and wears multiple strands of bone and bead necklaces, a dark trade-cloth shirt with a beaded medallion at the chest, and moccasins, and holds a lance or staff across his body. Behind him rises an elaborate feathered and fringed headdress mounted on a stand. His wife stands at his right in a heavily patterned Pendleton-style blanket robe, long braids, a choker necklace, and a hair ornament, with a rifle or staff resting against her shoulder.

The Umatilla Art Gallery operated in Athena, Oregon, a town adjacent to the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Pickel photographed numerous tribal members during this period, making the studio imprint a documented regional source for Indigenous portraiture of the Columbia Plateau peoples.

The reverse bears multiple pencil inscriptions including "James / Joshua / & Wife," a paper label reading "James Joshua and wife," catalog numbers 775 and 305, and additional partially legible notations referencing Athena.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer