Rosa Bonheur: The Complete Story
Rosa Bonheur carried a police permit, renewed every six months, allowing her to wear trousers, kept lions at her chateau, and painted The Horse Fair so well that America bought it for a record price. She was the most famous woman painter on earth, and lived openly with the women she loved.
The Empress of France pinned the Legion of Honor on her at her easel. Everything about the scene was unprecedented, including the trousers.
Rosa Bonheur at a glance:
1822: born in Bordeaux to a Saint-Simonian painter father who believes, on principle, in educating daughters.
1849: takes over her father's free drawing school for girls in Paris the year he dies.
1853: The Horse Fair, five meters of muscle, tours Britain and America and makes her the world's most famous woman painter.
1865: Empress Eugénie pins the Legion of Honor on her at the château, declaring genius has no sex.
1899: dies at By, near Fontainebleau, leaving everything, story included, to Anna Klumpke.
A Saint-Simonian childhood
Bonheur was born in Bordeaux on March 16, 1822, to a painter father who belonged to the Saint-Simonian movement and took its promise of women's equality literally, training his daughter exactly as he would a son. She copied in the Louvre in her teens and studied anatomy where the animals actually were: the horse markets, cattle fairs, and slaughterhouses of Paris, sketchbook in hand, dressed in trousers for practicality with a police permission de travestissement she dutifully renewed twice a year.
The Horse Fair
Ploughing in the Nivernais, a state commission shown in 1849, made her name; The Horse Fair, painted between 1852 and 1855, made her immortal: five meters of percherons wheeling around the tree-lined market, painted with an energy critics compared to the Parthenon frieze. It toured Britain and America, Queen Victoria requested a viewing, engravings entered thousands of homes, and Cornelius Vanderbilt bought it in 1887 for a record 53,000 dollars and gave it to the Met, where it commands its wall today.
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The chateau of lions
In 1859 she bought the Chateau de By near Fontainebleau and filled its park with her models: horses, deer, mouflons, and lions, including a lioness, Fathma, who followed her like a dog.
In 1865 the Empress Eugenie traveled to By to make her the first woman artist awarded the Legion of Honor, reportedly declaring that genius has no sex; in 1894 she became its first woman Officer.
Buffalo Bill, touring France in 1889, sat for her portrait between shows.
The myth of the quaint animal painter
Animal painting sounds minor, and the assumption has kept Bonheur out of surveys she used to dominate.
In her century she was a global celebrity, the most reproduced woman artist alive, financially independent on a scale no French woman painter had reached, and open about her life: four decades with Nathalie Micas, then her final years with the American painter Anna Klumpke, whom she made her heir.
The three share a grave at Pere-Lachaise. Recovery came full circle when her chateau opened as the Musee Rosa Bonheur and Orsay's 2022 retrospective repositioned her.
Where to see Bonheur
She died at By on May 25, 1899, at 77. The Horse Fair reigns at the Met in New York, Ploughing in the Nivernais at the Musee d'Orsay, and the Chateau de By, kept as she left it down to the paint-crusted smocks, is open at Thomery near Fontainebleau.
The slaughterhouse student
Her anatomy school was wherever animals were cheapest and most honest: the Paris horse markets and slaughterhouses, sketchbook against the rails.
The famous trousers permit existed for exactly this fieldwork; skirts and sawdust yards did not mix, said the police form.
By The Horse Fair she knew horses from the inside out. Critics who called the drawing masculine meant only that they could not fault it.
Buffalo Bill at the gates
In 1889 Buffalo Bill's Wild West camped beside the Paris Exposition, and the old painter came again and again, sketching mustangs and the Lakota performers between shows.
She painted Cody on his white horse; he treasured the portrait, and it lives today in Cody, Wyoming, in the museum bearing his name.
Two celebrities from two worlds trading images: the painter of animals and the impresario of a vanishing West understood each other on sight.
Nathalie, then Anna
Nathalie Micas shared her life and household for more than four decades: mixing varnishes, running the château, nursing her through cholera.
After Nathalie's death in 1889 came Anna Klumpke, the young American who arrived to paint her portrait and stayed as companion, heir and biographer.
Bonheur left Klumpke everything, including the story: the memoir Anna assembled remains the main source, a life narrated by the woman who loved it last.
The Rosa Bonheur questions that keep coming up
What is Rosa Bonheur's most famous painting? The Horse Fair of 1852-55, five meters wide, bought by Vanderbilt for the Met in 1887 after touring two continents.
Why did Rosa Bonheur wear trousers? To work in horse markets and slaughterhouses, under a police cross-dressing permit that French law required her to renew every six months.
Was Rosa Bonheur the first woman to get the Legion of Honor? The first woman artist, awarded in person by Empress Eugenie in 1865, and the first woman promoted to Officer in 1894.
Where can I see Rosa Bonheur? The Met in New York, the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, and the Musee Rosa Bonheur at her Chateau de By near Fontainebleau.
How much does a Bonheur cost? The Horse Fair belongs to the Met and is not moving; salon-scale canvases bring six figures to low millions, and the drawings are gaining fast.
Was she famous in America? Enormously: engravings of The Horse Fair hung in parlors across the country, and Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the original specifically to give it to the Met.
More secrets to unlock
Two papers, one verdict
The French state that made her renew a permit to wear trousers every six months also made her the first woman Officer of the Legion of Honor. She kept both papers, and history has decided which one embarrasses whom.
