2019 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 228
VERSO
Signed, titled, and “Sketch for the Tobacco Dance Crow Ceremonial made on the spot 1907 or 8. J. H. Sharp. Large painting 40 x 56 in museum,” written in the artist’s hand
Ethnologist Robert Lowie wrote, “The Tobacco Society loomed large in the tribal life of the Crow, its ceremonial activities probably ranking next to the Sun Dance in importance.” It was “the only attempt at cultivation made by the Crow before their contact with the whites (and) consisted in the annual planting of tobacco for purely ceremonial purposes.”
PROVENANCE
Dr. Carl S. Dentzel, Los Angeles, CA by 1977
Private Collection, St. George, UT
EXHIBITED
Joseph Henry Sharp and The Lure of the West, C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, MT 1977
LITERATURE
Dr. Carl S. Dentzel, Joseph Henry Sharp and The Lure of the West (Great Falls, MT: C. M. Russell Museum, 1977), p 41, illustrated