BONHEUR, ROSA

original name Marie-rosalie Bonheur born March 16, 1822, Bordeaux, Fr. died May 25, 1899, Melun painter and sculptor famed for the remarkable accuracy and detail of her portrayals of animals. Toward the end of her career these qualities were accentuated by a lighter palette and the use of a highly polished surface finish reminiscent of the famed 17th-century Dutch painter of animals, Paulus Potter. She was first trained by her father, Raymond Bonheur, an art teacher, and later by Lon Cogniet in Paris. Bonheur was a regular Salon exhibitor from 1841 onward. The Horse Fair, one of her Salon pieces exhibited in 1853, was acquired in 1887 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for a record sum and became one of her most widely reproduced works. Bonheur was unconventional for her time. She wore trousers, smoked cigarettes, and for a time kept a lioness and would paint only wild animals. In 1865 she became the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the Lgion d'Honneur.