Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-08-20
ROSA BONHEUR.
Early History OF the Great Artist
Bohemian Ways and Franks
at School.
Why She Assumed Masculine Attire
Her Life That Of an Estimable
Bachelor.
London Times.


and in the way that seemed best to her. Had
she been born 10 greater prosperity, she
| would have been endowed with q marriage
| portion, handed over al nineteen or twenty
to bourgeois husband, and become SO en-
| crossed In household or mercantile cares
that it would have been impossible for her
i to devote herself 10 the art for which she ad
an inherited capacity. Rosa Bonheur ia a
Girondine. She does not mind saying she
is sixty-two years old. Her father lost his
| wife when Rosa was seven years old. She
was the eldest of five children, four OF whom
are still living, and they are all disiin-
| guished artists. The late Nine. Bonheur
was a music mistress, and earned fairly
good income. She was patronized by the
archbishop Of Paris and Legitimist families
The former, when her husband had been a
short time widower, advised him to seek
his fortune in Paris and offered to give him
letters OF introduction to great people at the
court of the Tuileries. The duchess de
Berri was friend oil artists, and Bordeaux
had peculiar claims upon her and the other
members OF the reignng house. Against the
| poor drawing master reached the French
capt al with his following of orphans that
princess and all her family were in exile
RAYMOND BoNHEUR
went to live in the Champs Elysees, which
-l.'o.a their counted by the Psrisians al
the worlds end, and the most cut-throat
difficulty precarious livelihood. There
were many boarding schools where he gave
lessons, aud he had many private pupils
| young ladies aIl-whom he taught at their
| own houses. 1t was impossible for him 10
do anything for the salon. An old woman
| was hired to look after the children and the
cook, housekeeper and general servant
Rosa was left completely to herself, and pro-
flied by her liberty TO go daily and gather
| wild flowers in the Bots de Boulogne. The
now elegantly-kept park was in her child
hood a wild wood in which duelists fought,
melancholy people hanged themselves, and
| princes of the blood shot hares and rabbits
The desperate characters of the city also
| made it, in fine weather, their sleeping quar-
| tiers. Raymond Bonheur lectured and pun
| ished and told fearful stories about little
girls who had been murdered when caught
| walking there alone, and whose bodies had
| been thrown into the river. The naughty
child was frightened. But the impression
soon wore of, and back she stole TO the wild
| woods.
HER FATHER IN DESPAIR,
| teok the extreme course of placing her with
! a seamstress who made dresses for the con-
| ccrse, and lived few doors off. Had Rosa
been docile she might have grown up to sing
THE Song of the Shirt" But absolute want
| had never broken her spirit. Her mind was
too busy thinking about sylvan sights and
/
| ton. On fine days she pouted, cried and
| spoiled the hens that were turned down for
| her. The seamstrsss lost patience. called her
| miserable little good for-nothing, and re-
| fused to be pestered any longer with her.
Raymond Bouheur next got schoolmistress
| to receive his unpromising daughter as a
| uon-paying pupil. Instead OF paying for
her he was to give as many drawing lessons
as might be wanted of him. The school was
on the Chaillot side of the Champs Eysees
and near the Arch of Triumph, was highly
genteel, and filled with young ladies of great
middle. class expectations. The drawing pro-
fessors child Mortified them. Her hair wa.
neglected. She was dressed in coarse and
incongruous clothing; her face was tanned
like gypsy's. 1t was evident that no care
full mamma or governess had ever made her
wear a poke-honnet. The hands and arms
were red and scratched, and, in short the
idea among the young misses was that
ROSA WAS COMMON AND UNCLEAN
Her most unkind schoolmate was the child
OF a London dentist, who has since married
a Russian boyard. The motherless little
girl was ignorant not only of La Petite Gram
marie, but of writing and arithmetic She |
had learned the alphabet to read on wet !
days some odd volumes of Bufon's Natural |
History which had been given TO her father |
by an insolvent pupil. Her genteel class |
fellows thought 1t shame for the mistress |
to introduce such young Bohemian among |
them. They combined to snub and torment |
her. She hated them with all her heart, but |
did not dare to express her feelings in words. |
Her accent was ridiculously Bordelais, and !,
her ear would have told her SO if she had |
not been laughed at whenever she spoke. |
The pencil afforded her a weapon for exc |
cutting vengeance. Rosa Joined the drawing
class TO be abe TO see her father often, and |
made rapid progress. She caricatured the
girls who were most aggressive in perse-
cutting her. The schoolmistress took their
part. At some grand school solemuity a |
portrait OF her-not fattered-and done on
copy-book paper, was found on every desk.
General laughter led 10 inquiry.
ROSA WAS EXPELLED
when il was discovered that it was she who
provoked the hilarity. Her school expe-
riences made her The quiet but irreconcila-
BILE enemy of aristoeratic and eenteel |
Philistinism. In the chronicles of the fash
ionable world the name of Rosa Bonheur
has never yet appeared. This equal of Paul |
Potter goes her way in silence and keeps
away from frivolous lion-hunters. She has
much honest pride, no vanity, and never had
taste for those triumphs which ladies most
desire. In all her life she has not solicited
the patronage of a great man, or asked a
journalist for puff. Nobody is scandalized
at her independence, perhaps because she
chooses her own friends, and will not be ac-
quainted with any one who does not inspire
her with sympathy. If her manuers are
frank she is reserved in her habits. When
Rosa Bonheur returned home from school
she allowed herself to be persuaded that she
was bad lot. She repented of her past
The old woman died, and
RAYMOND Bonheur could not afford to hire I
another servant. His eldest daughter took
pity upon him and put her shoulder to the
wheel. She replaced the dead mother.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS FELL ILL
Their state developed the affections aud the
will of Rosa, who had naturally deal of
character. A sense OF responsibility grew up
and brought precocious wisdom 10 her She
became the preceptress OF the youthful band. |
But her requirements were very limited. |
The only thing that she dould do we'll was
10 use her pencil. A family drawing-class
was formed. Rosa was the teacher. In the |
evening her father looked over her sketches
nd those of his younger children. She also
had turn for modelling. The discovery of T
a stratum of pipe-clay in the ditch near 8
Chaillot enabled her to find material at no Z
cost One of her brothers grow up to be t
sculptor; another is an animal and land v
cape painter. The second sister directs the O
chool OF design in La Rue Dupuytrin. v
Rosa has always, from feeling of gener-
,sity, abstained from exhibiting at the d
Champs Elysees since her brother Isidore be- Il
IAN to send there sheep painted in the high q
ands of Auyergne. The Bonheurs, from | f
Rosa downward, are | ii
scuLProRs AND PAINTERS OF ANIMALS b
L was the famous elder sister who impelled u
he younger children in this direction. Cir o
aided. Her young charges were q
we'll enough off to be indie
pendent, and too poor to be placed under reg 81
liar eontrol.-Heighbofs were keenly alive ?
o their detects. As no sympathy was 10 be q
'btained by them from strangers, and sthey
lad no kindred beyond their imnediafef cir b
lie in Paris, they could only sympathize With b
nimals. They made friends with some p
Eretched mongrels, with sheep that grazed il
n the waste land at Chaillot, and with goat a
which supplied them with milk. Their flat | n
Tas garnet, with broad terrace on the sc
treet side. Here they kept the goat. for 81
Thich they went into all the wild spots they | Of
ould think of to gather forage. When it CT
Ias kid they carried it to browse, and they TT
iten managed, after it grew up, to steal in Ii
nd on: the house, unknown TO an ill-tem- to
cred and despotic porter. Capricorn was fc
be living model for the building artists.
hey drew il In every point of view | u;
t learned to stand still when it was | CT
eing sketched. Kids born on the terrace | 81
ere ALSO Subjects" Sheep and dogs were | IL
hen drawn and painted in oils. Neighbors cl
cyan to respect the Bohemian family of the | Of
rawing master, and some old ladies paid pl
nc oIOtners anu ti5ters 10 execute PORTRAITS .,
n canvas, and in pipe clay, of their canine 70
lvorites. The best prices were commanded hi
y Rosa, who, at sixteen, WAS a master of &C
er art. Six years later De Morny advised dl
he Countess Lshon TO invest, as a good spec W
lation, in a painting which Mile Bonheur a
Inhibited at the salon. There was no Sc
rayado in se
osA BoNHEUR's ASSUMPTION OF MASCULINE d.
GARMENTS. nj
be donned them to be able to 60 among W
able men, butchers and grsziers at horse hi
nd cattle fairs-the school 10 which she N
-died-without exposing herself to jeers
nd ia Cd L =