The Briscoe Western Art Museum

In addition to being located right on the historic River Walk, our San Antonio hotel was also just a few doors down from the Briscoe Western Art Museum. 

I visited the museum on Saturday while Carol was doing homework.

It's a small but wonderful museum with a great selection of Western art...

detail from Palo Duro Breeze by Xiang Zhang

and artifacts.  

The main floor houses two full-size vehicles; a mail coach...

and a covered wagon.

I especially liked the wagon's tacky details.

 That's some A+ re-purposing there!

Since this is San Antonio, there was also a room dedicated to the Alamo. 

I don't have a deep interest in military history, but I do enjoy intense dioramas like this one. It's like a live show scene class on steroids.

Of course, most of my visit was spent in the Saddle Gallery.

So many wonderful Western, 

early Texas saddle, circa 1834

Mexican... 

Guerra family saddle, circa 1900's

and Spanish saddles! 

Spanish saddle, circa 1750's

Operating on the belief that you can never have too many reference photos, I took a lot of pictures in the Saddle Gallery. I'll share some of my favorites in the next post.