VERSO
Label, Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York

Copies of a 1939 letter from Nancy Russell to Mrs. Charles Coulter, and a letter from Kennedy 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 to White 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

LITERATURE
Rick Stewart, Charles M. Russell Sculptor, Amon Carter Museum, 1994, p. 336, illustrated

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