Rosa was only 11 years old when her mother died. She was the eldest of four children and her father, a drawing teacher who barely earns to feed them. To help the family, Rosa went to help a seamstress and in the evening she took drawing lessons from her father because she wanted to earn a living with a brush.
At 31, Rosa amazed the world with a very large canvas entitled "The horse fair”. All who saw the work exhibited at the Salon de Paris said that due to the vigor and artistic value it expressed, it could only have been painted by a man.
When Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie stunned in front of that painting, Eugenie asked the emperor to confer on Rosa the highest French decoration, the Legion of Honour. The emperor let himself be convinced but his advisers opposed him.
Twelve years later, while the Emperor was absent, Eugenie, as regent, went to the Bonheur's studio to confer the honor on her.
Rosa, still wearing her coat smeared with colours, stood in front of the Empress who said, pinning a decoration on her chest: "You have earned a new title of honor for your gender".
But Rosa was yet to get a higher recognition of the Legion of Honor: in 1885 she was made an officer and was the first woman awarded this degree.
Already from the first lessons, it was evident that Rosa was gifted for painting animals. She specialized in this branch, studying in books, in museums, on prints and plaster casts.
But how to study large cattle? Rosa forced herself and while she lived in the countryside she painted every animal she came across, cows, horses, sheep. She knew that the public liked this Technique and for her it meant selling the paintings to support the family.
Back in the city, she took to sketching at the Paris circus and the Wild West American Center, during Buffalo Bill's European tour.
Rosa's dream came true when she settled on the edge of the Montaineblau Forest, the legendary hunting reserve. In the stables were Arabian horses, French Percherons, American mustangs, and peonies from Skye, Shetland and Iceland. But her greatest pride was wild beasts: deer, gazelles and an elk from America and a yak from Asia and even a pair of lions.
Rosa was well aware that to be loved by animals you had to really love them. She loved them. The lioness put her paws on her shoulders and kissed her.
In this animal kingdom Rosa lived almost 40 years, so much so that she was called "The Diana of Fountainebleau". She never married despite several admirers of hers. Rosa dedicated her life to art.
He could not cope with all the orders that came in from all over the world. For the work "The horse fair” took her 18 months of work. Every day she went disguised as a man to the horse market in Paris, where she was in the company of stable boys and matchmakers.
When the painting was exhibited, Victor Hugo said: “As a creative artist, I consider her the first among women".
Today this painting, a 2,50 by 5 meter canvas, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Rosa sold the painting for $8, but when Cornelius Vanderbilt bought it a few years later as a gift to the Metropolitan, he paid $53 for it.
Today her works can go from 1.000 euros depending on the type, in fact, in addition to oil paintings, you can find watercolors, drawings, multiple prints more accessible to the collectors of this artist.
Some recent awards:
Emigration of Bisons (America), 1897 – Tempera, pastel/canvas (111 x 187 cm)
Clearing price: €592.791 ($659.500) Price including charges: €695.259 ($773.500) Estimate: €269.654 – €449.424 ($300.000 – $500.000 ) Coeur d'Alene Art Auction, 27/07/2019Reno NV, United States. Signed and dated lower left. (73 x 110,5cm).
Le Laborage, 1844 – Oil/canvas
Clearing price: €296.665 ($340.000) Price including charges: €369.086 ($423.000)Estimate: €69.803 – €104.705 ($80.000 – $120.000 ) Sotheby's, 01/02/2019New York, United States. Signed and dated “Rosa Bonheur 1844” lower right Notes: Property from a Private California Provenance: Braun, Clément et Cie, Paris; Frau E. von Oelbermann (acquired from the above); Laura von Oelbermann, Cologne (by descent from the above and sold, Lempertz, Cologne, December 11, 1929, lot 1 as Pfügende Pferde); Private Collection, Germany; Sale: Sotheby's, New York, June 3, 1994, lot 168, illustrated; Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale and sold, Sotheby's, New York, April 18, 2007, lot 117, illustrated); Acquired in 2014Exposure: Paris, Salon des Artistes Français, 1845, no. 159
cover image: The Horse Fair (1844) Metropolitan Museum of Art
