Wild Spirit: The Work of Rosa Bonheur

As a young artist Rosa exhibited animal paintings and sculpture at the Paris Salon during 1841-1853 winning a third prize in 1845 and a gold medal in 1848. The Salon was renowned for supporting traditional artists and in this Rosa did not disappoint them although her work was devoid of the sentimentalism inherent in so much of the work of other 19th century animal painters. From this initial success at the Salon she was awarded a commission from the French Government to paint a work on the subject of ploughing. "Plowing in the Nivernais" was later exhibited at the Salon in 1849 and firmly established her reputation. However her most famous work "The Horse Fair" (1853) was the painting which won her international acclaim and garnered her many well-known admirers. Chief among these was Queen Victoria who ordered a private viewing of the work at Windsor Castle. In fact so popular did Rosa become in England that her chief source of income during the 1860s-70s came from that country.

Throughout a long and illustrious career Rosa went on to accumulate many awards. She was the first woman to win a cross of the Legion d'Honneur for outstanding achievement in her field. The Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, bestowed this on her in June 1865 stating as she did so that "genius has no sex". Other honours included awards from the Great Exhibit of London 1862, the Paris Exposition Universalle 1867, and the Chicago Words Colombian Exposition in 1893. Retiring to a chateau near Fontainebleau, which she called "The Domain of Perfect Affection" Rosa spent much of her time with a menagerie of animals that included bears and lions, as well as writing prolifically. When she died in 1899 her ashes were buried in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris along with those of the two women with whom she had shared her life.

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