Rosa Bonheur, "The Horse Fair"

"The Horse Fair" by Rosa Bonheur
(96.25 in × 199.5 in (244.5 cm × 506.7 cm)

"Four years later Rosa Bonheur exhibited 'The Horse Fair,' which was destined to make her famous throughout the world, and more especially in England and America. It was the sensation of the Salon in 1853, but as the painter had already received the highest honours from the jury, there was nothing left to bestow upon her. It was greatly admired by the Emperor Napoleon III, and the Beaux-Arts wished to buy it, but they could not afford the sum asked by Rosa Bonheur, and the painting was returned to her studio at the close of the exhibition.

Study for 'The Horse Fair"

Study for 'The Horse Fair'

Her preparations and studies for this famous picture were indicative of the painstaking assiduity of her temperament. She attended horse fairs, making exhaustive and minute studies for months beforehand, and was naturally thrown amongst the same class of men as had worked at the slaughterhouses. Here though she had no kindly protector, and therefore took refuge in male clothes, which she wore constantly to the day of her death having been given permission by the Prefect of Police to do so. 

The vigour and movement of this picture are familiar to everyone, horses of every kind being led and driven to the fair. In the foreground a magnificent pair of gray cart-horses, with arching necks and glistening coats, are trotting gallantly, their long tails neatly tied. Immediately behind, a colt frightened by the plunging of a white horse by his side is rearing wildly with foaming mouth, his ears laid back and his eyes showing his terror. A man on his back is beating him with a stick; a pony trots meekly on his other side without guide or rider. Under the trees on the right, rows of horses are standing being appraised, whilst where the ring turns a horse is being trotted for inspection. Only the hind quarters and part of the back are visible, but this is one of the finest paintings of a horse in action that Rosa Bonheur ever did. The colouring of the animals is admirably chosen. Each is the perfect expression of its type.

Her growing success now brought her many patrons, and after the exhibition of 'The Horse Fair' she was obliged to take a larger studio where she kept a small menagerie of animals for the purposes of study. Besides her studio in Paris, she had another at Chevilly, where she kept a quantity of goats and sheep. She was an indefatigable worker, but even her unusual energy could not cope with the commissions that began to flow in upon her.

In the meantime 'The Horse Fair' had been exhibited at the towns of Gand and Bordeaux, it being offered to the latter municipality for 12,000 francs, but the offer was not accepted. British art dealer M. Ernest Gambart then expressed his desire to become the owner of the picture, but the artist said that if it was to be taken out of France she could not accept less than 40,000 francs, a sum he immediately agreed to pay. The matter was settled, and then M. Gambard told her that he would give the picture to Thomas Landseer, the celebrated engraver, in order that a plate might be made of it.

She was delighted by this suggestion and made a small copy one-quarter of the size of the original, which was immediately brought to the engraver. When Rosa's masterpiece was hung in Mr. Gambart's exhibition laudatory articles filled the press, and Queen Victoria had it brought to Windsor for inspection. Upon its return to the exhibition with this added prestige, Rosa Bonheur was the most famous woman of the moment in England.

Three half-size replicas were made, one to serve as reference for an engraving by Thomas Landseer and two others as private commissions. A fourth much smaller version in oil and two autographed watercolour versions were also commissioned.

When Rosa died, her brother, Isidore Bonheur, cast a bronze relief plaque based on the painting for her monument at Fontainebleau. The memorial included a large statue of a bull, on a pedestal with four relief plaques reproducing her most popular paintings; it was destroyed in 1941, but a cast of the plaque is held by the Dahesh Museum in New York."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Rosa Bonheur" by Frank Hird.)