A Rosa Bonheur from America

This large canvas is reminiscent of Rosa Bonheur’s most beautiful compositions. Acquired in the United States by its current owners, until recently it graced the walls of a château in the Bordeaux region.

Few artists of her time achieved international renown like Rosa Bonheur. Since the presentation of her masterpiece , Le Marché aux chevaux, at the 1853 Salon , she has been in demand the world over. She toured the world to present the painting to the public in England, Scotland and, above all, the United States, where a collector bought it and donated it to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. From Buffalo Bill to Queen Victoria, his clients multiplied. So it’s hardly surprising to discover that this painting, titled At the pond, the herdsman and painted in 1862, was acquired by its current owners, Americans, in the United States over fifty years ago. While the exact date of entry into this country is unknown, we do know that the work was re-hung there in 1949 by Murray. It then crossed the ocean again, to be installed in a château the family had acquired in the Bordeaux region. This scene illustrates everything the public loved about Rosa Bonheur’s painting, which, at a time when academic painters and avant-gardists were at loggerheads, enjoyed a consensus. Trained by her father Raymond Bonheur, she quickly enriched her style by working on the motif both in the abattoirs of Paris and in the forest near Fontainebleau, where she lived and frequented the artists of Barbizon. She helped animal art evolve with a touch of naturalism and uncommon power.