# Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bonheur, Rosalie

Layout 2
​BONHEUR, Mademoiselle ​Rosalie, called Rosa, an artist unrivalled amongst her own sex for the minute and spirited delineation of the various forms of animal life, was born at Bordeaux, March 22, 1822. The daughter of a French artist of some distinction, she profited by the instructions of her father, who was her sole adviser in the mechanism of painting. As the avocations of her family compelled them to reside in Paris, the indulgence of her own particular tastes in the choice of subjects for study was somewhat difficult of attainment, and she derived her early instruction from a study of such animal life as could be seen by her in the streets and abattoirs of Paris. In 1841 she entered upon her career by exhibiting two pictures "Chèvres et Moutons" and "Les Deux Lapins," which established her reputation. These were followed by a succession of highly finished compositions, amongst which may be cited the celebrated "Labourage Nivernais," which was completed in 1849, and has been added to the collection in the Luxembourg. She attends the horse-markets both in France and abroad, adopting the masculine garb, which is not ill-suited to the decided character of her face, and enables her to inspect and to purchase her subject with less interruption and remark. She has fitted up an antechamber divided only by a partition from her studio, as a stable for the convenience of the various animals domesticated therein, and has established a small fold in its immediate vicinity for the accommodation of sheep and goats. It is owing, in a measure, to this conscientious examination of the developments of animal life that she has produced such masterpieces of representation as the "Horse Fair," a picture which formed the chief attraction at the French Exhibition of pictures in London during the season of 1855, and which almost monopolized for a time the attention of artists and connoisseurs. In 1855 she sent to the Universal Exhibition in Paris a new landscape of large dimensions, "The Haymaking Season in Auvergne." Rosa Bonheur has evinced in her works a wonderful power of representing spirited action, which distinguishes her from other eminent animal painters of the day, and which endows her pictures as compositions with extraordinary interest. Several of this lady's productions have been engraved for the English public. Since 1849 she has directed the gratuitous School of Design for Young Girls of Paris. She obtained a first-class medal in 1848, and another in 1855. She was decorated with the Legion of Honour, June 10, 1865, and in 1868 she was appointed a member of the Institute of Antwerp. During the siege of Paris in 1870–71, her studio and residence in Fontainebleau were spared and respected by special order of the Crown Prince of Prussia. Two important pictures by this artist, "A Foraging Party," and "On the Alert," were exhibited at the Antwerp Academy in 1879, and in London in 1881. "The Lion at Home," exhibited in London, 1882, was a result of the painter's study of a fine couple of Nubian lions which were presented to her by a friend. In Jan. 1880, the King of the Belgians conferred the Leopold Cross on Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur, who was the first lady to receive this distinction; and in the following month she received from the King of Spain the Commander's Cross of the royal Order of Isabella the Catholic, this being the first instance of such a distinction being conferred upon a woman in Spain.