Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Horse Fair

Rosa Bonheur, 1852–55

This huge canvas, about five metres wide, shows a horse market on a tree-lined boulevard in Paris. To sketch there without being bothered, Rosa Bonheur dressed as a man, twice a week for a year and a half.

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Did you know?

Look for the dome of the Salpêtrière, a famous old Paris hospital, in the left background.
Many of the horses are Percherons, big and powerful French work horses.
Bonheur called it her own Parthenon frieze, after the horses carved on the ancient Greek temple.
She retouched it in 1855, which is why a small 5 appears after the date.
A British dealer bought it and toured it around England, and Queen Victoria asked for a private viewing.
In 1887 Cornelius Vanderbilt bought it at auction for $53,000 and gave it straight to the Met.

About the artist

Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) was born in Bordeaux, trained with her artist father in Paris, and later lived and worked at the Château de By near the forest of Fontainebleau.

She was the most famous animal painter of her time, celebrated above all for the huge, thundering canvas The Horse Fair.

To sketch freely at horse markets she obtained an official permit to wear trousers, and at her country home she kept a whole menagerie of animals, even lions.

Rosa Bonheur ›

Where it is today: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Museum page