Coeur d'Alene Art Auction - July 2021

– 131 – 165 Charles M. Russell (1864–1926) Watcher of the Plains (1901) bronze 11.5 inches high inscribed on base: C. M. Russell 1901 © Calif. Art Bronze Fnry LA VERSO Label, Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York Copies of a 1939 letter fromNancy Russell to Mrs. Charles Coulter, and a letter fromKennedy Galleries describing this bronze will accompany the lot. Russell authority Ginger K. Renner wrote, “In 1901, Charles M. Russell painted an oil of a Piegan warrior astride a white horse and leading a band of horses in a night scene entitled The Horse Thieves , now in the Amon Carter collection. In that same year the cowboy artist created Watcher of the Plains , a painted plaster model of a seated Indian. Whether the painted plaster or the oil painting inspired the other is not known, but it’s been determined that Russell’s model for both was White Quiver. Over the next several years Russell made copies of Watcher of the Plains with minor variations for family members and close friends, but it wasn’t until the fall of 1926 that it was cast in bronze. The relaxed, but intensely alert, warrior is seated on his buffalo robe, a flintlock across his lap, and a medicine bag in his belt. He wears a wolf-skin cap with a large feather attached. One perceives him seated on a high bluff, peering out across the plains, watching intensely for either game or enemy intruders. He exudes power, sagacity and leadership – all attributes assigned toWhite Quiver, the great Piegan leader.” PROVENANCE Nancy Russell Mrs. Charles Coulter, Montana Mrs. A. Verharen, Seattle, Washington, by descent Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York Mr. &Mrs. Robert J. Dellenback, Jackson, Wyoming, 1976 Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York Private collection, 1997 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, Nevada, 2017 Private collection, Reno, Nevada $50,000–75,000