It was a Big Bang Theory plot just last season, and played out pretty much as you described.
put it on freecycle… if anything happens say someone stole it - a guy with one of those wolf tshirts
O what a tangled web we weave…
Seriously, the fewer lies you have to make up, the better the outcome will be. “It doesn’t really match the decor” is truthful and somewhat tactful.
I think it would look good over a toilet, since it looks like the cougar is in the midst of his daily constitutional.
I’d just say that I read about some awful thing on the internet and how people were desperately trying to raise funds to save xxx and the picture was such a perfect fund-raiser item that you couldn’t resist donating it to save the poor xxx. Offer to email link to her so she can help out with the cause.
I mean, when people come over to your house they don’t see your WHOLE house, right? Your bedroom, that room you have full of junk?
I’m sorry, we accidentally destroyed it when we tried to get to what we thought was a copy of the Declaration of Independence underneath.
How about, “Someone from American Pickers made us an offer we couldn’t refuse!”
I’m curious how big it is. You say “rather large”, which would mean the cat’s face is “rather large”, too. :eek: Maybe they think your Indian stuff is “western” and so you’d like this “western” art as well.
I’m with the folks who say tell her you haven’t found the right place to hang it yet. If she doesn’t get the hint, then that’s her problem.
Hot damn. I should write for TV. 
Everytime I go back and look at that painting again I wish I was home so I could full enjoy a laugh out loud moment.
The woman’s feeling aside, I think it’s a state law that each school district have at least one team with a Lions mascot. If you’re trying as a practical matter to find it a good home, I’m sure some exist that would appreciate and proudly display such a stunning display of orogenic Felidae majesty.
I am shocked at the lack of creativity shown by my fellow Dopers in this thread.
Next time there’s one of those White Elephant gift exchanges at work, you have the perfect “gift”.
My first thought was how did your friend teach the cougar to paint?
Tell her someone broke into your house and all they stole was the painting.
We do have the holiday gift exchange here on the Dope. Someone here might get the purrfect gift.
I’ll swap it for the really ugly heavy ornamental Buddha my mother brought me back as a gift from Norfolk (Norfolk England, btw; not a Buddhist hotspot). Apparently she thought I was Buddhist; I am not at all Buddhist - probably less Buddhier than most people, in fact.
Though at least I could use my Buddha to knock out a burglar and say “now THAT’S karma!”
Not to mention that you wouldn’t want people walking down the street to see that thing hanging in your home.
She’s the wife of a *former *colleague, right?
“Sorry, but it really didn’t fit with our decor. So we donated it to the local college, who said they would display it with a tag that acknowledges you as the generous donor.”
Please start w/ the scene Sam described above. I’ll give you a million space bux.
Make sure there’s an early close up shot of the front of the Buddha, w/ a plaque reading, “Namaste from Norfolk England”, which makes it reeeeeally horrible. OOH ooh, in Comic Sans.
I’m seconding the “white elephant” idea for a coworker, and then when she asks about it, just say “I took it to the office.” She’ll think it’s IN your office, and won’t ask about it again. (This will obviously not work if you work in an open office, or if she is a professional who may end up IN your office at some point.)
On the downside, if she’s the generous sort and you don’t tell her that you find the thing totally atrocious, you’re going to be getting rid of a whole lot more similar crap in the future.
If that’s the case, eventually you’ll probably have to admit that either your artistic spaces are full, or that you would rather gouge your eyes out than hang another(any) smaltzy wild cat on the walls of your environment.
If you think that’s likely, it may be better to demur kindly “we haven’t found a space for it yet” from the start.
I wish I could help you out - my husband and I collect limited edition cougar prints. The problem with this one, however, is that the cougar looks terrible - we don’t collect ALL cougar prints!
Here’s the first one we started with -Robert Bateman’s “Excursion.” If the art isn’t good, we don’t buy it (I can hear some of you saying that that doesn’t look good to you, but it looks good to us, and that’s what matters 
).
As for your problem, I’d say bring it out when she visits or re-gift it - when you buy someone a decoration for their house, I think you take the chance that they aren’t going to like it, and you have to accept that risk. You better be damned sure that they want what you’re buying.
“I threw it away. It was ghastly!” Said with a big grin. The will make them think you may be joking, but they will never know for sure.
Take it to a 1st grade art class and have them rework the print with finger paint. Auction off for charity.
Put it outside facing that tree that the skwirls (spellcheck be damned) come into your yard over. No more skwirl parties!
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