Rosa Maria Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur was the most famous woman painter of the 19th century, and her subject was animals. Horses, oxen, sheep, deer and dogs fill her canvases, painted with scientific accuracy and real feeling for their weight, muscle and movement.

Born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur in Bordeaux in 1822, she was taught by her father, the painter Raymond Bonheur, and studied anatomy at Paris slaughterhouses and the veterinary school. She had to get police permission to wear trousers for her visits to horse and cattle markets. Ploughing in the Nivernais (1849) is in the Musée d’Orsay, and the huge Horse Fair in the Metropolitan Museum made her famous in Britain and America. She received the Légion d’honneur in 1865 and in 1894 became the first woman artist promoted to officer. From 1859 she lived at the Château de By near Fontainebleau, now a museum. She died in 1899.

Deer at Fontainebleau and Doe and Fawn in a Thicket come from the forest around her home.