Coeur d'Alene Art Auction - July 2021

– 36 – 48 Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936) The New Rug (1917) oil on canvas 46 × 34 inches signed lower left: E- I- Couse- VERSO Label, The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NewMexico Label, Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, New York Label, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NewMexico The New Rug (study) (1917) oil on canvas laid on board 10 × 8 inches signed lower left: E- I- Couse- VERSO Label, The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NewMexico Label, Sotheby’s, New York, New York The New Rug will be included in the E. I. Couse Catalogue Raisonné . The New Rug is housed in its original frame designed by Couse. Couse historian Virginia Couse Leavitt writes, “In The New Rug , Antonio Lujan of Taos Pueblo proudly displays a neatly folded Navajo blanket in front of him. His steady gaze compels the viewer to consider the intrinsic beauty of the Native craft he holds in his hands. Couse was himself an ardent admirer of Native American crafts.” Originally painted as part of a campaign for the BeaconManufacturing Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Leavitt stated, “Several of the paintings in the Beacon blanket series rank among the artist’s best work. His success in raising a commercial concept to the status of fine art illustrates his creative flexibility under that kind of pressure. An outstanding example is found in The New Rug , the second painting purchased by BeaconManufacturing.” PROVENANCE BeaconManufacturing Company, New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1917 Mr. &Mrs. Charles D. Owen, Jr., New Canaan, Connecticut M. Knoedler Galleries, New York, New York Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, New York, 1973 Morrie Zinman Collection, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NewMexico Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles, California, 1982 Sotheby’s, New York, New York, 1995 Joffa Collection, Jackson, Wyoming EXHIBITED Cowboys, Indians, Trappers and Traders , Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1973 Native Faces: Indian Cultures in American Art , Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles, California, 1984 E. I. Couse: Image Maker for America , The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NewMexico, 1991-92 LITERATURE Virginia Couse Leavitt, E. I. Couse: Image Maker for America , The Albuquerque Museum, 1991, pp. 180-81, illustrated Virginia Couse Leavitt, Eanger Irving Couse: The Life and Times of an American Artist, 1866–1936 , University of Oklahoma Press, 2019, pp. 278, 280 Patricia Trenton, Native Faces: Indian Cultures in American Art , Southwest Museum of the American Indian, 1984, cover, pp. 78-94, illustrated $250,000–350,000 for the pair