Rick Rotante Charcoal Portrait of a Navajo Woman with Lamb, Signed

A charcoal drawing on warm tan paper depicting a seated Navajo woman cradling a lamb in her lap, signed Rotante lower right. The figure wears a traditional blanket-wrapped garment with a prominent squash blossom necklace at the throat, rendered in confident, gestural strokes that move between deep saturated blacks and the bare warmth of the paper ground. Highlights are pulled from the toned sheet rather than added, giving the woman's face and the lamb's fleece a luminous quality against the dense charcoal mass of the shawl and skirt.

Rick Rotante is a plein air and studio painter whose practice is rooted in the American Impressionist tradition, working extensively in the landscapes of the desert of New Mexico and California coast. His handling of rock, scrub, and shifting desert light has earned him recognition in the contemporary plein air community. The subject here is one of the most historically loaded sites in southern New Mexico: Van Patten's Mountain Camp at Dripping Springs, a 19th-century resort turned sanatorium turned ruin, now preserved within Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. That Rotante chose this specific location — not Dripping Springs as backdrop but the camp's collapsed stonework and standing outbuildings as the painting's primary subject — gives the work documentary weight beyond its pictorial qualities. Signed lower right; presented in a fresh gilt frame with no glass.

CONDITION

Good. The drawing presents cleanly with strong tonal contrast and an intact signature. Some debris is present behind the glass. Frame shows minor handling wear consistent with age.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Medium: Charcoal on toned paper
• Signed: Rotante (Rick), lower right
• Sight: 16" H × 13" W
• Framed Overall: 23.5" H × 19.5" W × 0.75" D
• Presentation: Matted, glazed, wood frame