Rosa Bonheur Enters the Paris Salon

"Sheep and Lambs" by Rosa Bonheur

A lovely detail of "Sheep and Lambs"

"In 1841, when Rosa Bonheur was nineteen, she sent her first picture to the Salon, two common pet rabbits nibbling at carrots, and also a drawing of sheep and dogs. Both were accepted, but excited no comment. The following year, however, she sent three paintings and a piece of sculpture in terracotta which attracted considerable attention, especially one of the paintings called 'Effet du Soir sur un Paturage.'

In 1843 she was again represented, in painting by a picture of horses, and in sculpture by a bull, a powerful study in plaster. Her work now began to be noticed, and all her paintings were sold. This enabled her to go into the country and study closely from nature, with the result that she sent five pictures to the Salon in the following year, all of which deepened the favourable impression made by her previous exhibits.

Her father wrote, 'She has secured for herself a position far above the reach of the malignant criticism of cabal, and is independent of the worthless puffing to which many of her rivals, whom she has left behind, owe their notoriety... I should fear, if I were less convinced of the high character of her mind that she might suffer herself to be unduly elated.'

In the following year she was accorded a medal of the third class by the jury of the Salon. It was then the custom that recipients were obliged to go to the director of the Beaux-Arts who gave them their medals in the name of the King. Rosa Bonheur's father, who wished her to be independent and to rely entirely upon herself, sent her alone, and when the medal was given, with many compliments, she astonished the official by replying, 'Thank the King I beg you on my behalf, and have the kindness to add that I shall try to do better another time.'"

To be continued

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