Poneys on the Isle of Skye, 1861, collection Chris and Marion Ball

At the exhibition Rosa Bonheur, at Musée d’Orsay, my  heartbeat went up when I noticed for the first time in History, a cartel which mentioned “United Kingdom, Lent by His majesty King Charles III”. It is a majestic lion’s head, a whole symbol. I had no idea that the French artist, 1822-1899, had travelled so much to Great Britain and Scotland and studied in such a scientific way, the movements of animals in Ballachulish and on the lakes in the Highlands. A room is devoted to sheep and donkeys in the Pyrénées and to Scotland where she travelled while touring in 1856 with “The Horse Fair”, the large painting her British merchant Ernest Gambart, promoted everywhere through prints. It is now at the National Gallery in London. It gave her International fame and provoked many orders from the U.S. Her depiction of the ferrying of sheep from pasture to pasture, by boat in 1863 is also a  masterpiece.

Studies of Barbaro, ca 1858,  Musée National du Chateau de Fontainebleau, long term loan from Orsay

Rosa Bonheur was raised in Bordeaux by her father who was an artist and she never married. She was more honored in the middle of the 19 th century than most of her fellow painters, received the Legion of honor from Empress Eugénie in 1865 (she is the first woman artist to do so) and gave to animals the space and the size of historical paintings. She enjoyed their company and moved to a house, By, near Fontainebleau in order to live with them. Exhibited at the Salon at 19, she showed “Two rabbits” a ravishing painting lent by the Musée des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux, where the retrospective attracted 64 000 visitors this Spring and Summer.

Rosa Bonheur and Nathalie Micas, The Horse Fair, 1855, London The National Gallery of Art

This retrospective is made in honor of the 200 th anniversary of her birth and includes over 200 works. She was born in a family of artists, her siblings Auguste, Isidore and Juliette also paint, and her father Raymond’s sculptures are exhibited in the first room. Her mother died when she was 11. One of her passions is to study the interaction between animals and men and she travels around Auvergne, Nivernais and Pyrénées observing farmers and laborers. After the success of “Labourage nivernais” which shows men at work with bulls, the “Horse fair” painted with her partner Nathalie Micas, is her second huge success.

George Achille-Fould, Rosa Bonheur in her studio, 1893, © Mairie de Bordeaux, musée des Beaux-Arts, photo L. Gauthier

At the end of her life, she meets Buffalo Bill in Neuilly where he set his “Wild West Show” in 1889. This leads her to do a series of portraits of Indians and of Buffalo Bill himself on horses. It was her dream to travel to the Wild West but she was never able to go. The diversity of the works is fun and from the “Big Oak”, a watercolor on paper to the huge deer “King of the forest” to the “Duel”, a drawing in chalk and charcoal of 1896, the strength of her style is obvious. She has become the flag bearer of feminists and LGBT movements but she is worth much better, for her paintings are seriously good and entertaining.

“Le labourage nivernais” ou “le Sombrage”, was comissioned by the state, 1849, Photo ©Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais, Patrice Schmidt

When I congratulated Christophe Leribault, the President of the museum, on all the details  geared at children like low captions on the walls and drawing boards and models to pick up in the first room, he laughed and said: “my target is now the 3 year old onwards, children have to learn to go to museums at an early age”. And this it typically an exhibition for all ages, especially with contemporary artist Gloria Friedmann‘s large deer at the entrance.

“Saint George slaying the dragon”, 1896, Gouache on fan,© CC0 / Paris Musées / musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris

“Rosa Bonheur” until January 15 at musée d’Orsay.