THE HORSE FAIR

Rosa Bonheur

Artist: Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899)
Date: Between 1853 and 1855
Dimensions: 244.5 x 506.7 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

International success came in the blink of an eye for the French animal painter Rosa Bonheur when, at the age of 31, she submitted this large canvas of the Paris horse market to the Salon exhibition of 1853. The artist set off on a promotional tour of England with her picture — demonstrating the importance of personal charm in effective publicity — and the work was later shown in several American collections. Although she went on painting her beloved animals for another 46 years, she never surpassed this masterpiece in size or impact.

Horsepower

The painting, more than five metres wide and at two-thirds life size, is a huge study of the horse fairs held on the Boulevard de l’Hôpital in the 13th arrondissement of Paris (in the south-east of the city). It took 18 months to complete. Bonheur, the persistent animal painter, was inspired by the equestrian studies of Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) and the horse sculptures of the Parthenon frieze. From 1849 Bonheur attended the horse fairs, also made sketches of the horses of the Paris Omnibus Company, and recorded the tree-lined avenue in studies. In the background of the picture appears the dome of the chapel of the nearby hospital, the Pitié-Salpêtrière. (The background originally existed in rather sketchy form, so the artist reworked it in 1855.)

Bonheur’s strength is the breathtakingly realistic depiction of animals; she is able to convey the thrilling moment when men strain every muscle to rein in the powerful workhorses, which wildly toss their tangled manes, stir up the dust with violently stamping hooves, roll their eyes fiercely, their flanks gleaming with sweat. The arrangement of the figures in an arc leads our eye around the bustling group, while the onlookers on the right of the picture act as a repoussoir (leading our gaze back into the composition). Sunlight coming from the right brings out the horses’ forms like a sculptural relief against the background of soft treetops.

A Masterpiece on the Art Market

Although she had won a gold medal at the 1848 Salon with her study of an ox team, Ploughing in the Nivernais, at the time The Horse Fair was exhibited Bonheur’s name was still unknown beyond the borders of France.

The painter first offered the work to her native city, Bordeaux, for 12,000 francs, but was turned down on the grounds that the price was too high for the work of a woman artist. In Bonheur’s time only male painters were taken seriously.

Then the London-based Belgian art dealer Ernest Gambart appeared on the scene, a promoter of French art abroad, who paid 40,000 francs for the work, intending it as the centrepiece of his exhibition in England the following year. Bonheur was pleased with the price (negotiated by her companion, Nathalie Micas) and assigned the reproduction rights of the work to Gambart. For this purpose she produced a ¼-scale copy (painted by Micas) and sent it to Thomas Landseer, brother of the famous English animal painter Sir Edwin Landseer, to make an engraving from it.

Gambart’s Coup

Gambart then persuaded Bonheur to take part in the picture’s promotional tour of England. The work attracted huge crowds in London — people paid 1 shilling each to see it — and then the painting was taken to Buckingham Palace so that Queen Victoria could view it; she afterwards congratulated the artist.

The laurels, however, were reaped by Bonheur. The painter, only 152 cm tall, captivated the public, who could hardly believe that this colossal picture of stamping and snorting horses was the work of a woman. The Illustrated London News dubbed her the “female Landseer”, and the Daily News called her the greatest French painter of rustic scenes, perhaps the best in the world.

Success Across the Ocean

Despite the publicity, Gambart found no English buyer for the painting. Its fame, however, crossed the ocean, and in 1857 it was bought for 30,000 francs by William P. Wright of New Jersey. The picture was shown by the Stevens and Williams Gallery in New York in October of that year and later went on a nationwide tour.

In 1870 Wright sold the painting to a wealthy merchant named Alexander T. Stewart, who hung it in the private gallery of his Fifth Avenue mansion next to Ernest Meissonier’s Friedland (1807). When Stewart’s collection came up for auction in 1886, the work was acquired for around 53,000 dollars by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, heir of the famous shipping magnate. By then Bonheur had become a cult figure in the United States, where children played with dolls made in her likeness. In a characteristically charitable gesture Vanderbilt donated the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it can still be seen today.

Did you know?

Bonheur’s fame abroad rested largely on her habit of wearing men’s clothing, which in her later years usually consisted of red peasant trousers and a blue smock. She wore these for comfort when working with her animals (she rode astride rather than side-saddle). She applied for a police permit to appear in public in men’s clothes, and fooled many people who took her for a man. Bonheur was also a heavy smoker, with a particular fondness for Havana cigars. She was never in favour of marriage and preferred female company, once remarking tartly that the only males she loved were the bulls in her paintings. Interestingly, this masculine stance helped Rosa gain public acceptance, because people saw her as a tough woman painting robust figures who had successfully taken on the male-dominated art establishment.

About the artist

Marie-Rosalie Bonheur was born in Bordeaux; her father, Raymond Bonheur, was an artist, and her mother, Sophie Marquis, a music teacher. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Paris. At thirteen Rosa was expelled from school for fighting. She then took drawing lessons from her father, under whose guidance she and her siblings spent long hours in the Louvre copying famous sculptures and paintings. Raymond’s three other children — Auguste, Isidore and Juliette — not only developed their own artistic skills but also helped Rosa paint when her fame had already eclipsed theirs. She was also helped by her lifelong companion, Nathalie Micas, with whom she lived first in Paris, where Rosa worked as an art teacher, and later at a château near Fontainebleau, the Château de By. Here she received an unexpected visit from Napoleon III’s Spanish wife, Empress Eugénie, who awarded her the cross of a Knight of the Legion of Honour, making her the first woman to receive this distinction. After Nathalie’s death in 1889 Rosa found a new companion in the American painter Anna Klumpke. In the last year of her life she made a controversial decision: she rewrote her will in Anna’s favour, thereby excluding her siblings from her inheritance.

Géricault: Black Horse in Harness
Bonheur: Ploughing in the Nivernais
Ernest Gambart
Alexander T. Stewart