Market dispatch·Global
$250,000 Siberian Christmas Leads Coeur d'Alene's 193-Lot Western Art Sale
Coeur d'Alene Art Auction's 193-lot Fine Western & American Art sale on 7 November 2026 is led by Leon Gaspard's Siberian Christmas, estimated at $250,000-$350,000, alongside works by Charles M. Russell, Birger Sandzen and John Nieto.

Coeur d'Alene Art Auction brings 193 lots of Western and American art to market on Saturday 7 November 2026, in a live online sale hosted on Bidsquare. The Idaho auction house arrives with strong momentum, having recorded more than $20 million in sales this year and a reported sell-through rate of 98 percent, and the catalogue ranges from nineteenth-century Plains scenes to contemporary Indigenous painting.
The top lot is Leon Gaspard's Siberian Christmas, painted in 1935 and estimated at $250,000 to $350,000. The 24-by-24-inch oil on canvas laid on board shows a snow-covered inn glowing beneath towering evergreens, with figures and horses gathered outside. The subject was personal for Gaspard, who first travelled alone to Siberia in 1899 at the age of seventeen and kept returning to those memories in paint for decades. The picture is also illustrated in a 2015 monograph on the artist.
A second highlight is Charles M. Russell's War, a watercolour from 1899 measuring just 8.5 by 10.25 inches and estimated at $70,000 to $100,000. It shows an Indigenous rider galloping across open ground, with almost no background to distract from the movement. The work is recorded in the artist's catalogue raisonne as CR.PC.507. Birger Sandzen's Two Pines, painted in 1921, takes a quieter subject and fills it with colour: blue, lavender, green and rose strokes animate a rocky landscape. The 18-by-24-inch oil is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000 and is documented as number 531 in the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery's card catalogue, having passed through the collection of Reverend Dr. Victor Rosenius Pearson of Lindsborg, Kansas.
The contemporary voice in the sale comes from John Nieto's Fancy Dancer III, painted in 2011. Against a deep blue ground, the dancer appears in sharp contours and flashes of pink, orange, yellow and purple, with colour doing the work that setting does in the older pictures. The 40-by-30-inch acrylic on canvas is estimated at $25,000 to $35,000 and comes with provenance from the artist and a private collection in Montana. Together, the four works span more than a century of Western art, from Gaspard's Siberian winter to Nieto's vivid present.


