Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux in 1822. Her father, Raymond Bonheur, was a painter and a follower of the Saint-Simonian movement, which advocated the equality of women. She trained with him, copied old masters in the Louvre and studied animals closely at farms, horse markets and slaughterhouses, obtaining a police permit that allowed her to wear trousers for this work. Bonheur specialized in animals and was celebrated for her accurate anatomy and lively movement. Ploughing in the Nivernais of 1849 brought her renown, and The Horse Fair, completed between 1852 and 1855, shows horses and grooms surging through the Paris horse market on a monumental scale. It caused a sensation as it toured France, Britain and the United States and became her most famous work. She was especially popular in Britain and America, where her paintings were widely reproduced. In 1865 she received the Legion of Honor, among the first women artists to be so honored. In later life she settled at Thomery, at the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, living with her longtime companion Nathalie Micas and later with Anna Klumpke, and she died there in 1899. She is now also seen as an emblematic figure in nineteenth-century women artists' struggle for professional standing.