"i'm 99% sure it is a fake"

why?

klallen wrote: "i'm 99% sure it is a fake" why?

99% because if i say 100%, it will probably turn out to be the ONE time that it was real!

seriously, CMR did something like 5200 works, and we know where every one of them are. to my knowledge, this one doesn't even exist. on top of that, there is the signature in the middle, rather than in the corner. the buffalo simply doesn't look right, and the sig itself looks a little too free-flowing. the style of the features of the painting is close, but not quite like all of CMR's that i have seen. the way the colors are blended is quite suspicious too. russell was't using some of the techniques that i see here until after 1903. another clue is that being a watercolor, it should be framed with glass over it. only an oil painting wouldn't be covered by glass, in order to protect the painting from temperature and humidity changes. all-in-all, it looks to ahve CMR's style, but the little artistic details are not his at all, from what i know and have learned.

the real kicker, though, is the very careful way that the auction is worded. if you read it like a lawyer, you will see that nowhere does it actually say that this painting was actually painted by CMR.

put all of this together, and it is a fake. maybe someone's college art project from the 1930's or something. when i was in college i took ONE () art class, and did a very close copy of a george catlin painting. it was nowhere enar being accurate, but it was close enough to resemble one. i suspect that this is a similar case.

NuTTy wrote: From what little I've seen, that does not look like something Russel would do, aren't his works usually more lifelike and less comedic? Actually depicting actual events and what not? Of course I don't know art or how many styles he had so this is just a stab in the dark. Any record of anything similar in the museum?

charlie liked to keep it real, but he also ahd a hell of a sense of humor. it the subject matter didn't surprise me too much, but the way it is more like a caricature than a painting did strike me as not quite right. we've got a couple of similar paintings, one called BRONC TO BREAKFAST and another called CAMP COOK'S TROUBLES. both paintings are very similar to each other, and you can see elements of them in this one, but still.......

rd -

hard to judge values. basically, it is whatever someone is willing to pay. if i remember correctly, one russell painting sold in auction this amrch for 60k, but another one was withdrawn from bidding because they could not get any bids over 165k. my numbers could be off by a bit with the second example, but it was an astrnomically high number, yet it was withdrawn ebcause it was "not enough." still another painting that the museum owns was purchased through citizen and volunteer donations for 1.1 million dollars. it's all relatice, but i would guess that a genuine, original CMR watercolor would be in the area starting at 25k and going up to anything from there. waksupi keeps closer tabs on this sort of thing, being an artist himself. perhaps he would be able to give some better numbers. i am still new at this, and don't have enough under my belt to even begin to pretend to be an expert.

LOL - just saw this "information" added....i hope that the poor slobs who bid on this get a chance to retract.

-----------------------------------------

I do not know the NAME of the FAMILY that owned this BEFORE I
I do not know WHEN or WHERE this was painted .
I do not know if the FRAME is original OR if it was added at a later date .
I am selling this JUST THE WAY I FOUND IT,other than opening the backside brown paper

I DO NOT HAVE A CLUE , thanks for all the emails

The ONLY thing I can guarantee for 100% sure is this is indeed a real watercolor painting ,with real paint NOT A PRINT - NOT PRINTED CANVAS .
It is dirty , and has some sort of "spatter spots" , and this will need cleaning ......

It's on paper thats laid (glued??)on board (not wood)
I have been asked ::
Do I have any provenance ? NO I do not .
DO I have a COA ?NO I do not
DO I have a letter of authenticity ? NO I do not
Do I have a return policy ? NO I do not
It's only signed C M Russell and the date of 1898 .
I cant make it bigger better or cleaner , I don't have a story to sell with it ,

Sounds like the guy is being pretty upfront, so it's caveat emptor. The horses look reasonable, but the rest of it doesn't strike me as Charlie's work.

Ron, I'll bet there are a fair amount of Russells over here in the valley the museum is unaware of. For instance, the three that were offered to the Hockaday Museum a few years back, I'm sure no one who hadn't visited the home ever knew existed. I believe another artist family in the valley may have up to six of them. Almost gave out the name, but that probably wouldn't be a good thing to do.

Has the museum looked into the validity of the painting in this auction?

looks like all of the posts after KLALLEN's were lost on this thread. the short answer is "yes!" if any new details pop up, i will be sure to inform you all!

update:

SOLD!!!!

for 8600$!!!

From the end price, it's apparent that not many took it seriously as a Russell. Then again, I bet it will show up in a gallery within the next year as a real one, with an acccompanying high price, say, $25,000 or so. Might even see it at the auction next spring in Great Falls. 

As Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute!

Hey Ron  >>  Was thinking about something late last week. I thought I'd posted a comment along the lines, but it either got deleted in the switch-over or I simply forgot to get to the post with the holiday break activities and all.  Either way, here it is.

Did the museum take the opportunity to inform the seller that what he was offering was a fraudulant piece?

I fully understand that the museum "eye" can't watch over all, but the way that this fell into your lap, I'm curious if any consideration was given to making sure it was known to those selling and buying that it was not original?

I've been in the sports card end of collectables for some time now and have helped out a couple occasions on eBay where folks have mistakingly  put up for auction what they thought were high dollar cards, valued in the thousands, just to have them proven to be far less valuable variants of a given card.  This proven out based on photo or word description of the cards in question.  The attention brought to the seller was always received with great appreciation.  They were able to contact all the bidders, explain the situation, and appropriately end the auction.  They had so take a bit of embarrassment with the situation, but in the end, no $$$ changed hands and noone got taken for something incorrectly described by someone else, of lesser experience.

Seems like a similar situation to this CMR auction and a decent opportunity for the museum.  I would have to imagine, if noone else thought your opinion valuable, the fello that just dropped $8.6K, thinking he was getting a CMR original, would have loved to hear what you had to say on the topic.  Any thoughts?  >>  klallen

From what I have seen in the past, you open yourself up to liability, no matter what your credentials are, by getting involved in things like this. The seller said pretty much straight out he had no provenence for the work. If it should by chance turn out to be real, the person could sue the good samaritan for the full price. In the past, i know of a Nez Perce style quiver that sold for $35,000, even when the maker was at the auction, and made sure it was stated it was a reproduction. Sure enough, a few monthes later, the buyer tried to sue HIM, rather than the owner, or the auction house.

If I see some Indian item mislabeled on Ebay, I will occasssionally fill the owner/seller in on what he actually has. This gives him the opportunity to add the information on or not, as he sees fit. These are always private communications, and I would never consider contacting a buyer after the fact.  

Even with the museum's expertise, it is better to keep a photo file of the piece, should it turn up again, and most likely reserve comment.

I can see your point, where there would be a liability issue, especially in this sue-happy world we live in.  But if the museum is sure of their belief, as they sound like they are, it would appear as though they would be doing a service to the seller and perspective buyers, rather then open themselves up to any sort of liability issue.

Of course, if they are quesioning their original stance of fraud, I agree, it would be best to steer clear.  I was just going on the assumption they were sure of what they were saying.  Kinda like my involvement with the sports card auctions.  I was sure before I made any move to contact the auction owner their cards were not worth thousands, but the fair market hundreds of the actual cards.  You erase all liability when your sure of things.  >>  klallen 

korey -

ric covered it better than i could have, but to answer your question, i did contact the buyer. in order to keep the museum out of it, i did contact him as a "regular joe" rather than as an employee at the cmr museum. i wasn't very polite about it, because at the time i didn't look at it as an opportunity to do him a service. i contacted him pretty much with the idea that he was trying to pull a fast one. i never did get a reply, but it was a couple of hours after that that he added all of the disclaimers at the bottom.

i didn't get the chance today to ask the curator what her final conclusions were. i will make a point to do that tomorrow and see if she has had a chance to check it out yet. we've been keeping her pretty busy!

waksupi wrote: Ron, did you mean you contacted the seller, rather than the buyer?

yikes!! yes! you are correct!!!

Just a thought.

The copyright law that suggesteed the 'circle C' as a way of indicating copyright ownership was inacted in 1903.  I go back a long way, but not prior to 1903.  since the date was prior to 1903, I'd have serious doubts.

Ron, are originals in the museum marked "CRM' with a "circle C' for copyright.  Older originals were not usually marked as there was no marked for prints (no good color printing), so when the artist sold the original he sold all of the work.  It was only later that the print market justified the artist retaining copyrights in the original.

just thoughts.

BEAR