Rosa Bonheur

Marie-Rosalie Bonheur was born in Bordeaux; her father, Raymond Bonheur, was an artist, and her mother, Sophie Marquis, a music teacher. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Paris. At thirteen Rosa was expelled from school for fighting. She then took drawing lessons from her father, under whose guidance she and her siblings spent long hours in the Louvre copying famous sculptures and paintings. Raymond’s three other children — Auguste, Isidore and Juliette — not only developed their own artistic skills but also helped Rosa paint when her fame had already eclipsed theirs. She was also helped by her lifelong companion, Nathalie Micas, with whom she lived first in Paris, where Rosa worked as an art teacher, and later at a château near Fontainebleau, the Château de By. Here she received an unexpected visit from Napoleon III’s Spanish wife, Empress Eugénie, who awarded her the cross of a Knight of the Legion of Honour, making her the first woman to receive this distinction. After Nathalie’s death in 1889 Rosa found a new companion in the American painter Anna Klumpke. In the last year of her life she made a controversial decision: she rewrote her will in Anna’s favour, thereby excluding her siblings from her inheritance.

From the page of The Horse Fair