Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur , 1822-99, French painter of animals. She was a pupil of her father, Raymond Bonheur. Her paintings were regularly exhibited in the Salon from 1841. Bonheur's informed and sympathetic pictures of animal life were remarkably enlightened in approach. They gained her wide popularity, particularly in England and America, where much of her work is to be seen. Her most famous painting, The Horse Fair (1853-55), is in the Metropolitan Museum.

Bonheur, Rosa (1822–99). French animal painter. She was trained by her father, Raymond Bonheur (d. 1849), and was precociously gifted, first exhibiting at the Paris Salon in 1841, when she was 19. In 1853 she scored an enormous hit there with The Horse Fair (1853, Met. Mus., New York; reduced replica in NG, London), and it repeated its success when it went on tour in Britain and the USA. She became well known not only for her work but also as a colourful and formidable character, outspoken in her feminine independence (she made drawings at such places as horse auctions and obtained police permission to wear men's clothes to avoid undue attention). In 1865 she was the first women artist to become a member of the Legion of Honour. Her home at the Château de By, near Fontainebleau, is now a museum devoted to her.