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CHARLES M. RUSSELL (1864–1926) Sentinel Duty, n.d.
watercolor on paper
21 1⁄2 x 34 3⁄4 inches
Inscription: L1: CM Russell/(skull)
$80,000–120,000
Recorded in Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonné: CR.UNL.486
Sentinel Duty, a watercolor C.M. Russell completed in about 1892, foreshadows a Russell masterpiece executed some two decades later at the height of the artist’s accomplishments in oil. When the landscape of Sentinel Duty is viewed alongside another watercolor titled Hunter’s Rest (also c. 1892), it becomes apparent that the germ of the idea for Meat’s Not Meat Till It’s in the Pan (in the collection of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma) could well have been stimulated by one of Russell’s personal experiences with the hunter Jake Hoover in the early 1880s. e highly autobiographical depiction of Charlie with Jake in hunting camp with a just-harvested big horn sheep suggests just such an occasion. Comparing the composition
of Sentinel Duty with that of Meat’s Not Meat leads the observer to wonder if the lead ram
on sentinel duty is actually eyeing the hunter about to take fatal aim. As both compositions depict, the likely resting place in the crag just below the cli edge is fully evident, and the observer’s eye is drawn in each case to a circling eagle.
Interestingly, the position of the grazing sheep in Sentinel Duty is replaced by a similarly grazing horse in Meat’s Not Meat. As is often the case, Russell’s masterpieces in oil emanate from improvements in prior watercolor compositions that re ect personal experiences from his earlier years in Montana.
Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926) Hunter’s Rest, 1892
watercolor on paper
24 x 16 3⁄4 inches
Private Collection
Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926)
Meat’s Not Meat ’Till it’s in the Pan, 1915
oil on canvas
Image: 23 3⁄4 × 35 3⁄4 inches (60.3 × 90.8 cm) GM 0137.2244
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
A framed, early print of Meat’s Not Meat ’Till It’s in the Pan will accompany this lot.