You are here:  Home › Artists › Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur

Born: Bordeaux, 16 March 1822
Died: Thomery, 25 May 1899
Nationality: French
Background: 

daughter of artist Raymond Bonheur

Studies: 

with father

Career: 

1841 – first Paris Salon exhibition; exhibits regularly until 1855

1848 – French government commissions Ploughing in the Nivernais

1850s –The Horse Fair tours Great Britain and the US

1860 – moves to Château de By near Fontainebleau forest; Buffalo Bill Cody and Eugenie (Empress of France) are guests

1865 –first woman awarded the Légion d’honneur

1887 – Cornelius Vanderbilt purchases The Horse Fair for £53,000 and donates it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

Travels

Rome (1822-24)

Commissions from: 

French government

Important Artworks: 

Ploughing in the Nivernais, 1849 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris)