GLR March-April 2023

windows, legs crossed, surrounded by her monumental can vases of rearing stallions and sturdy oxen. For over a month, they had a daily sitting. Bonheur insisted that Klumpke should paint several portraits. I believe this was in order to keep her there for longer. Bonheur opened up about her life, artistic style, and technique. § R AISED BY A SOCIALIST FATHER , Rosa had a defiant, outgoing per sonality from early childhood. Her father didn’t believe that women should be confined to lives of polite conversation and dependency, which was the norm. The Bonheur family moved from rural Bordeaux to Paris in 1829, when Rosa was six years old. Living in Paris, her father recognized her artistic talent and fully supported her education at art academies. When Rosa was nineteen, her father leased an apartment for her in a section of Paris that was close to rural farms. The land lord had no problem with Rosa keeping a menagerie of small animals there. She became fascinated with the range of animal emotions and physiognomy, which she tried to capture in draw ings that depicted a wide array of different species. Drawing be came the core of her artistic skills. The big turning point in her career was a commission by the French government in 1848. Bonheur created one of her most famous large-scale works, Ploughing in Nivernais , which was acclaimed by the prestigious Paris Salon in 1849. The painting was an encomium to agriculture, depicting farm laborers plow ing a field. She carried out fieldwork in the Nivernais, where she observed animals, methods for yoking teams, and the land itself, all of which shaped her works over a lifetime. In her Paris studio, she developed a highly structured composition with a double diagonal format. This success was followed in 1855 by Bonheur’s most fa mous work, The Horse Fair . Her mastery of painting animals in motion is much in evidence, along with her smooth paint treat ment to depict the horses with illusionist precision. In her paint ings, Bonheur used areas of impasto to add texture to earth, bark, and animals’ coats. One distinctive feature of Bonheur’s work is that she painted animals in their natural settings rather than as taxidermic specimens in artificial settings. Her work was greatly admired in America, and The Horse Fair was gifted to

the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1887 by Cor nelius Vanderbilt. An interesting footnote—and a sly wink to viewers in the know—is that Bonheur painted herself as a horse riding participant at the fair, dressed in the standard attire of the other (all male) riders, right in the center of the canvas! In 1842, Bonheur was commissioned by a family friend to paint a portrait of one of her children, a girl named Nathalie Micas (1824-1889). Over the following years, after Nathalie came of age, she and Rosa fell deeply in love. After Bonheur purchased the Château de By, Nathalie joined her, and they lived together for four decades as life partners. A proficient artist her self, Nathalie actually painted a portion of The Horse Fair . When Nathalie died in 1889, Rosa was heartbroken, writing: “How hard it is to be separated ... for she had borne with me the mortifications ... she alone knew me, and I, her only friend, knew what she was worth.” Bonheur kept working, but her life seemed empty after that. § F AST FORWARD to 1897 and Bonheur’s two-year love affair with Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, who came down to the Château de By initially to paint Bonheur’s portrait. Anna was born and raised in San Francisco, the eldest daughter of German immi grants. Her father came west during the California Gold Rush in the 1850’s to seek his fortune, among the thousands of gold prospectors in San Francisco. He didn’t make it panning for gold, but became wealthy through real estate speculation. The daughters were all artistic and scholarly, with careers in medi cine, art, and astronomy. Unlike Bonheur’s situation, Klumpke’s support came from her mother. Anna had a serious accident as a young child that left her with a limp all her life. Her mother took her and the oldest daughters to Europe to consult with the best physicians in Paris and Berlin, who could not help Anna. They stayed on in Europe after her parents divorced. Anna was educated in Germany and Switzerland, becoming fluent in multiple languages. In 1883, her talent led her to the prestigious Parisian art school, the

Rosa Bonheur’s The Horse Fair , 1852-1855. Detail is considered to be a self-portrait of the artist. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

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