An oil painting depicting horse thieves by famed Western artist Charles M. Russell brought $1.25 million at auction on Saturday.

“Offering a Truce (Bested),” a dramatic scene with a horse thief waving a white flag amidst bodies of horses and men,, fetched the top price ever paid for a Russell work at this annual auction, held in Bozeman, Montana.

Sarah Burt, Chief Curator of the C.M. Russell Museum, described the history behind the oil. “Russell based this painting on an actual shoot-out between horse thieves and one of the best known vigilant groups, ‘Stuart’s Stranglers,’ led by the colorful Granville Stuart (1834-1918). It depicts the bloody aftermath of the shoot-out, when fallen horses serve as the only shields against the gunfire. The shell casings that litter the ground and the empty bullet loops on the outlaws’ gun belts illustrate the need for surrender.

“As one of Russell’s more ambitious works of the mid-1890s,” Burt continued, “Offering a Truce became quite well-known during the artist’s early career, and as a result, it now possesses a blue-ribbon provenance.”

This year's Russell Live Auction, along with its related Silent Auction, Art in Action and the First Strike Friday Night Auction, brought a total of $5.5 million over the course of four days.

“This is the best Russell in terms of sales,” Michael Duchemin, executive director of the C.M. Russell Museum, told the Great Falls Tribune.

The sale generates funds for Montana's C.M. Russell Museum, a repository of Western American art with 12,000 objects, including works by O. C. Seltzer, Winold Reiss, J. H. Sharp, E. E. Heikka, E. I. Couse, Olaf Wieghorst, Henry Farny, and Frank Tenney Johnson. Charles M. Russell’s home and log studio are part of the museum.