Wednesday, August 14, 2019

F. J. Nye Saddle


This piece of billhead was brought to me during Western Art Week this past March. The gentleman wanted me to put a saddle on it, and included another billhead with a vignette of a tooled saddle. I went one better, bought a book from the Montana Historical Society Bookstore entitled: "Saddleries of Montana". In the book on pages 183 and 184 are depicted several black and white engraved images put up as ads for Mr. Nye, and another Helena saddler by the name of Ben Roberts. A little bit of a backstory here: Ben Roberts housekeeper was a young lady by the name of  Nancy Cooper. Nancy would marry my favorite artist, C. M. Russell. A tooled saddle. I'd do another, and will perhaps find some other saddlery paper from the early saddlers.