Bonheur, Rosa

Bonheur, Rosa (bənör`), 1822–99, French painter of animals. She was a pupil of her father, Raymond Bonheur. Her paintings were regularly exhibited in the Salon from 1841. Bonheur's informed and sympathetic pictures of animal life were remarkably enlightened in approach. They gained her wide popularity, particularly in England and America, where much of her work is to be seen. Her most famous painting, The Horse Fair (1853–55), is in the Metropolitan Museum.

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Bonheur, Rosa

(born March 16, 1822, Bordeaux, France—died May 25, 1899, Melun) French animal painter. She was trained by her father, an art teacher, and began exhibiting regularly at the Paris Salon in 1841. Her unsentimental paintings of lions, tigers, horses, and other animals became very popular; The Horse Fair (1853) gained her an international reputation. A colourful personality, she dressed as a man to study horses at the actual Horse Fair in Paris, receiving formal permission from the police to do so. In 1865 she became the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.