2022 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 273
273
Charles M. Russell (1864 – 1926)
The Robe Flesher
bronze
4.75 inches high
inscribed on base: CMR [artist cipher] R.B.W.
An original bill of sale from Rash Gallery dated 1975 will accompany the lot.
According to Rick Stewart, “During his initial years in Montana, Russell probably witnessed the practice of fleshing and scraping a buffalo hide himself, and he depicted it several times in his art, as in his early painting titled The Silk Robe.… Russell apparently modeled his small sculpture of an Indian woman with a fleshing tool in her lap during the last year of his life.”
PROVENANCE
The Brown Estate
Rash Gallery, South Laguna, California, 1975
Peter Philips, Monterey Park, California
LITERATURE
Rick Stewart, Charles M. Russell, Sculptor, Amon Carter Museum, 1994, p. 350, illustrated