Rosa Bonheur: Google doodle marks 200th Birthday of French painter

Google doodle on March 16, 2022, to celebrate the 200th birthday of French painter Rosa Bonheur, whose successful career inspired a future generation of women in the arts. She is mostly a painter of animals (animalière) but also a sculptor, in a realist style.

Rosa Bonheur was born on this day in 1822 in Bordeaux, France, the oldest child in a family of artists. Her early artistic education was facilitated by her father, a minor landscape painter. Her mother was Sophie Bonheur (born Marquis), a piano teacher; she died when Rosa was eleven. Her father was Oscar-Raymond Bonheur, a landscape and portrait painter who encouraged his daughter's artistic talents.

Although her aspirations for a career in the arts were unconventional for women of the time, Bonheur closely followed the development of artistic traditions through years of careful study and preparing sketches before immortalizing them on canvas.

Rosa Bonheur moved to Paris in 1828 at the age of six with her mother and siblings, after her father had gone ahead of them to establish a residence and income there. By family accounts, she had been an unruly child and had a difficult time learning to read, though she would sketch for hours at a time with pencil and paper before she learned to talk. Her mother taught her to read and write by asking her to choose and draw a different animal for each letter of the alphabet. The artist credited her love of drawing animals to these reading lessons with her mother.

Rosa Bonheur was openly lesbian. She lived with her partner Nathalie Micas for over 40 years until Micas' death, after which she began a relationship with American painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke.

Rosa Bonheur's reputation as an animal painter and sculptor grew into the 1840s, with many of her works exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon from 1841 to 1853. Scholars believe an 1849 exhibition of "Plowing in Nivernais," a government commission that is now housed in France's Musée Nationale du Château de Fontainebleau, established her as a professional artist. In 1853, Bonheur garnered international acclaim with her painting "The Horse Fair," which depicted the horse market held in Paris. As her most well-known work, this painting remains on exhibit in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

To honor this celebrated painting, the French Empress Eugénie awarded Bonheur the Legion of Honor—one of the nation's most prestigious awards, in 1865.

Source: Google doodles

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