Rosa Bonheur was born on March 16, 1822 in Bordeaux into a large family of artists.Her mother Sophie Marquis married Raymond Bonheur who was also her drawing teacher. Raymond painted landscapes of Bordeaux and portraits and instilled a love of art in all his children.
As a child when Rosa was struggling at school her mother used her love of drawing to her advantage. Asking Rosa to draw an animal for each of the letters of the alphabet was just the trick she needed. Her mother died when she was young and her school life suffered. Expelled twice her father finally took her out of school and focused on teaching her how to paint.
Raymond specialized in Realism and to help Rosa he had their Paris home filled with animals. From squirrels and rabbits to ducks and sheep the young artist had all she needed to begin her life as a painter of animals. Once she needed more subjects she would visit farms in Levalois-Perret and the Bois de Boulogne. Rosa was lucky to have an artist as a father as few women were able to find teachers at the time. Spending her days in the Musée du Louvre as a copyist always being pulled to the masters paintings of animals. At 19 year she was already showing her pieces at the Paris Salon and selling her paintings to avid collectors.
Wanting to expand her repertoire Rosa went places few women went or were allowed. At the slaughterhouses of Paris and the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire with her sketchbook and canvases in hand. Traipsing through the mud wasn’t easy for a woman in a dress, Like George Sand who came before her, dressing in pants was much easier and allowed her to mix with the male dominated world. Unlike George she obtained the permit that was needed to wear pants for “health reasons”.
Everything would change for her in 1855 when she painted the large tableau The Horse Fair. The 8 x 16 foot painting depicted a scene from the Paris horse market on the Boulevard de l'hôpital. Art dealer Ernest Gambart fell in love with it and purchased the painting along with the rights of reproduction and also took Rosa on as his client. The painting was sent to the UK and garnered the attention of Queen Victoria, which also came with an invitation with the queen. The painter would later be purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1887 and today hangs in the Met in New York.
After the success of the Horse Fair, the French government commissioned her to paint another large painting. The Ploughing in the Nivernais of two teams of oxen pulling plows was painted in 1849. It’s a magnificent painting and lucky for us hangs in the Musée d’Orsay today.
As Raymond would visit wealthy clients that he was painting,the teenage Rosa was always by his side. On one such visit she met Nathalie Micas and the two would remain together for 40 years. Most likely believed to be partners but Rosa would never address it. She didn’t feel it was anyone's business and at the time in France lesbianism wasn’t supported by the government.
All of Rosa’s dreams of being surrounded by animals became real in 1859 when she purchased the Chateau de By at the edge of the Fontainebleau forest. She and Nathalie had endless space with multiple buildings. She even built a studio with large north facing windows giving her the best light of the day. The chateau of course had a barn to hold all the animals she could ever want. Each morning she would wake up early and walk the property stopping in to visit her personal menagere. Tigers, monkeys, birds, dogs and even a lion named Fathma.
After forty years in 1889 Nathalie passed away and left Rosa very sad and lonely. Years before, she had met an American artist, Anna Klumpke and invited her to visit the Chateau de By. Anna was thirty years younger, but with a shared love of paintings and animals the two had a loving and lasting relationship until Rosa’s last days.
As a female painter in the 19th century she was able to do something few other women did. She became an international star. The copies of the Horse Fair were selling all over England and the United States and Empress Eugenie was also an avid fan. In 1865 Eugenie urged her husband for quite some time to award Rosa the Legion of Honor for her work and spreading French art around the world. He finally gave in with the stipulation that he would have nothing to do with it and it would be given without a formal ceremony. On June 10, 1865 Eugenie traveled to the Chateau de By and presented Rosa with the highest award a civilian could get. Anna would later paint her wearing the metal, today it is still in the Chateau de By.
Just after Nathalie died, Rosa’s eyesight began to suffer and would slow her down. Spending her final years walking her property and visiting her many animals. It was one of those walks that she would develop pulmonary influenza causing her death on May 25, 1899. Anna stayed by her side until the very end. Leaving behind more than 1800 paintings and drawings in her studio it was up to Anna to continue the legacy of Rosa Bonheur.
Everything was left to Anna, much to the dismay of Rosa’s family who called Anna the “money hungry American sorcerer”. A year after Rosa’s death, Anna put up over 4000 items of art and possessions and gave half of the money to the Bonheur family. Doing all she could to uphold her legacy for her art and property until her own death in 1942. Upon her death she would be laid to rest next to Rosa and Nathalie in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.
As for the Chateau de By, Anna’s heirs tried to keep it up but they didn’t have the same love that Anna had once held. In 2017 after falling into disrepair and years of trying to obtain the money to purchase it, Kathleen Brault purchased it. The divorced French woman had years of bad luck trying to find a bank to loan her money, until a fellow female banker was happy to help.
Just like Eugene coming to present Rosa with a gift, Stephen Bern, the amazing man that works his life to uphold the history of France arrived at the Chateau and presented Kathleen with a 500, 000 euro check on behalf of the president of France.
Today it is a museum to the artist opened by appointment and still holds many of her personal items and art.
