Rosa Bonheur

Biography

Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) was a French painter, sculptor and animalier, widely considered the most famous woman painter of the 19th century. Her best-known works include Ploughing in the Nivernais, shown at the Salon of 1849 and now in the Musée d’Orsay, and The Horse Fair, exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also made realist sculpture. She lived for more than forty years with her partner Nathalie Micas and later with the American painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke.