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Lot 89
Eanger Irving Couse(1866-1936)Pastoral: Resting Place
26 September – 7 October 2025, 12:00 EDT
Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsSold for US$11,520 inc. premium
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Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936)
Pastoral: Resting Place
signed 'E.I. COUSE' (lower left)
oil on canvas
24 1/8 x 29 1/4 in. (61.3 x 74.3 cm)
Painted in 1904.
signed 'E.I. COUSE' (lower left)
oil on canvas
24 1/8 x 29 1/4 in. (61.3 x 74.3 cm)
Painted in 1904.
Footnotes
Provenance
A private collection, Ohio.
Roughton Galleries, Dallas, Texas.
The present private collection (acquired from the previous, 2004).
Exhibited
New York, National Academy of Design, 80th Annual Exhibition, January 1-28, 1905, no. 264, as Pastoral: A Resting Place and alternatively titled Heading Home.
N.B.
Eanger Irving Couse was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design in New York, and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He lived in the art colony of Étaples, France, for a few years in the 1890s before returning to the United States and starting a studio in New York in 1898. In 1902, Couse began to spend his summers painting in Taos, New Mexico, and became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists alongside Joseph Henry Sharp, Ernest Blumenschein, Oscar Berninghaus, W. Herbert Dunton, and Bert Phillips. Couse was perhaps the most well known of the group and its effective leader; he became the Society's first president in 1915. The studio and properties of Couse and Sharp are now known as the Couse-Sharp Historic Site.
The present work depicts a herd of sheep and lambs grazing by a stream in a wooded pasture. A weary shepherd leans against a tree, watching over his flock with in a moment of respite. The scene is suffused with the soft golden glow of dusk that evokes an atmosphere of peace and stillness. Many of Couse's works from this period depict Native Americans and the Taos Pueblo, but this painting is void of manmade structures and the sole figure is just barely distinguishable among the shadows. The effect is a contemplative, quiet moment, a true resting place not only for the shepherd but for the viewer.
This painting will be included in the Couse-Sharp Historic Site's forthcoming E. I Couse catalogue raisonné under cat. record no. 1724.