Private collection, San Diego, California.

Charles Schreyvogel (American, 1861-1912) The Last Drop, modeled in 1903 Bronze with brown patina 12 x 18-1/2 x 5 inches (30.5 x 47.0 x 12.7 cm) Inscribed on the base: Copyrighted 1903 by / Chas Schreyvogel Inscribed with the foundry mark along the base: ROMAN BRONZE WORKS N-Y- Numbered beneath the base: No. 107 PROVENANCE: Private collection, San Diego, California. LITERATURE: H. McCracken, Great Painters and Illustrators of the Old West, New York, 1952, p. 202. E. Ainsworth, The Cowboy in Art, New York, 1968, pp. 48-49, another example illustrated. J.D. Horan, The Life and Art of Charles Schreyvogel: Painter-Historian of the Indian-Fighting Army of the American West, New York, 1969, p. 27, pl. 39, another example illustrated. P. Rossi, D. Hunt, The Art of the Old West, New York, 1971, p. 230, another example illustrated. P.J. Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1974, pp. 203-04, 205, pls. 205-06, another example illustrated. H. McCracken, The West of Buffalo Bill: Frontier Art, Indian Crafts, Memorabilia from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, New York, 1974, p. 196. Birmingham Museum of Art, Art of the American West, Birmingham, Alabama, 1983, p. 30. W.C. Foxley, Frontier Spirit: Catalog of the Collection of the Museum of Western Art, exhibition catalogue, Denver, Colorado, 1983, p. 110, no. 76, another example illustrated. G.A. Reynolds, American Bronze Sculpture: 1850 to the Present, Newark, New Jersey, 1984, p. 23. Taft Museum of Art, Home on the Range: American Western Art from a Cincinnati Collection, exhibition catalogue, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1994, p. 71. S. Campbell, The American West: People, Places, and Ideas, Corning, New York, 2001, n.p., pl. 62, another example illustrated. L.D. Rosenfeld, A Century of American Sculpture: The Roman Bronze Works Foundry, New York, 2002, p. 138, another example illustrated. T. Tolles, The American West in Bronze: 1850-1925, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2013, pp. 116-17, 120-22, 164, 185n14, fig. 146, 152, 153, no. 70, 71, other examples illustrated. At the time of his unexpected death from blood poisoning in 1912, Charles Schreyvogel was celebrated as one of the foremost painters of the American West, admired for his nostalgic depictions of a rapidly vanishing frontier. Although his rise to fame came relatively late, following the success of My Bunkie, which won first prize at the National Academy of Design exhibition in 1900, Schreyvogel had devoted himself to art from an early age. Born in New York City in 1861 to German immigrant parents, he apprenticed in the 1870s to both a gold engraver and a lithographer before enrolling at the Newark Art League. With financial support from his brothers, Schreyvogel traveled to Europe and studied at the Royal Academy in Munich from 1886 to 1890, where he developed a strong affinity for realism and narrative genre painting. A defining turning point in Schreyvogel’s career came in 1893, when he attended Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and, for the first time, encountered the subjects that had long fueled his imagination: cowboys, cavalrymen, and Native Americans. Captivated by the mythology and drama of the West, he soon traveled to the Ute Reservation in Colorado, where he photographed and painted local figures and began collecting western artifacts to use as studio props. Determined to achieve historical authenticity, Schreyvogel interviewed veterans of the Plains Indian Wars, including officers, cavalry soldiers, and Native Americans, carefully recording details of their experiences. These firsthand accounts profoundly shaped his work, leading him to focus primarily on the United States cavalry in the American West. His rigorous commitment to research prompted additional trips to the Dakotas and contributed to a relatively small oeuvre of fewer than one hundred paintings. Ironically, chief rival Frederic Remington in 1903 challenged the historical accuracy of his Custer's Demand; Schreyvogel, however, supported by notables including Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of Colonel Custer, weathered such criticism to become "the greatest" in his "line of work" (John A. Sleicher, editor of Leslie's Weekly). Schreyvogel executed two known subjects modeled in bronze, which, like his paintings, celebrated stories of heroism and bravery. The Last Drop, although seemingly less dramatic than his usual action-packed subjects, freezes a tension-filled moment after a skirmish: a devoted cavalryman pours the remaining drops of his water canteen into his hat and offers it to his weary mount. Schreyvogel cast the bronze from a clay model used for a painting of the same theme located in the Tacoma Museum of Art. In both, his attention to realism is evident in the horse's lean musculature, the rider's concerned expression, and the pair's survival equipment, from saddlebag and bedroll to sword and rifle. The rider kneeling before his horse, in a posture of deference, underscores a favorite Schreyvogel theme: the personal sacrifice of military personnel amid danger or defeat. More broadly, the composition reflects the profound bond between horse and rider that defined life in the American West, where survival often depended as much on the endurance and loyalty of one’s mount as on the courage of the man himself. Rather than portraying the horse merely as war equipment, Schreyvogel presents it as a trusted companion and equal partner, emphasizing the mutual dependence and quiet emotional bond forged through hardship on the frontier. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

Rubbing to arears of high relief. Stirrup on the right side is no longer extant.