NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced details of its Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture auction to be held Thursday, December 4, 2008. The sale features 186 works, with exceptional offerings from the finest American masters, including Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole, and Western artists Frederic Remington and Henry Farny.

“For new buyers and for established collectors, this sale presents an array of exemplary works by American masters from the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Department. “The high quality of the works combined with excellent provenance and moderate estimates promises to make this an exciting purchasing opportunity for our clients.”

A major highlight of the sale is an exceptional watercolor by Winslow Homer from 1887, entitled After the Rain, Prout's Neck (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000). In the work, the viewer looks on as a couple walks towards home after a day of labor. The man carries a scythe and the woman a basket, while their child walks between them and their dog trails behind. The watercolor was completed in the years after Homer moved from New York to Prout’s Neck, Maine, and eloquently communicates his growing reverence for the working man and woman and the quiet drama of nature.

A second work by Homer, an oil painting entitled Shepherd Girl Resting, circa 1878, is from the Hillman Family Collection (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000). The painting’s sole subject is a young shepherd girl reclining in a pasture. Her youthful innocence and childlike naiveté evoke a sense of nostalgia for the simple rituals of rural American life – a timeless theme Homer returned to repeatedly with his genre paintings.

Childe Hassam’s images of New York’s Fifth Avenue have long been acknowledged as master works of American Impressionism. The upcoming sale includes two major watercolors painted in the years when Hassam and his wife were living in lower Manhattan. Fifth Avenue of 1890 effectively captures the busy avenue on a lovely spring day, as the city’s well-heeled residents step out for a stroll. Hassam’s dominant color scheme of rich greens and purples is contrasted by the brilliant pinks and reds of a mother and child in elegant dress walking directly toward the viewer (estimate: $1,200,000 – 1,800-000). By contrast, Hassam’s Fifth Avenue, Evening, executed circa 1890-93, captures the city on a misty, rain-swept night in which glowing street lamps provide the only sense of comfort (estimate: $700,000-$1,000,000).

Following on the heels of Christie’s recent success in the Western Art market – including new world records set for Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt – the December sale features a superb collection of bronzes by Frederic Remington and four extraordinary works on paper by Henry Farny. The Remington bronzes – all iconic sculptural images – include many of the West’s most enduring images: The Outlaw (estimate: $600,000 – 800,000), Trooper of the Plains (estimate: $500,000 – 700,000), The Bronco Buster (estimate: $500,000 – 700,000), The Mountain Man (estimate: $150,000 – 250,000), The Rattlesnake (estimate: $120,000 – 180,000), The Scalp (estimate: $150,000 – 250,000) and The Cheyenne (estimate: $300,000 – 500,000).

Remington’s love of the American West was shared by Farny, a Cincinnati-based painter who became an active participant in the social life of the Native Americans living near Fort Yates along the Missouri River. Indian on Horseback from 1899 (estimate: $300,000 – 500,000) is a luminescent watercolor and gouache from the collection of noted Chicago philanthropists William and Eleanor Wood Prince. In the work, Farny depicts a quiet moment at an Indian encampment; the rising sun visible through the trees imbues the scene with a brilliant yellow-gold light. Also included in the sale are Farny’s 1895 gouache on paper In Pastures New (estimate: $1,000,000 – 1,500,000); Sign of Peace (estimate: $600,000 – 800,000); and The Warrior (estimate: $300,000 –500,000).

Other highlights of the sale come from major American collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Alice Lawrence Collection. Thomas Cole’s The Return from the Tournament (estimate: $2,000,000 – 3,000,000) is a richly imaginative genre painting that has never before appeared at auction. Grant Wood’s charcoal drawing Study for “February” from the Alice Lawrence Collection is a rich drawing of three black horses standing against a background of snow-covered rolling hills (estimate: $400,000-600,000). From the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Christie’s offers Alexander Bridge, Paris of 1900, a pastel and pencil work on paper by Everett Shinn. The sales will each benefit the acquisition funds of the museums.