Landscape, Fontainebleau, ca. 1865.

Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux in 1822, her father was a painter and her mother a musician. She started as pupil of her father then worked under Léon Cogniet but soon became interested and excellent in painting animals. She was nineteen years old when she was admit to the Salon de Paris, and got the first class medal in 1848.

The Labourage nivernais (Paris, musée d’Orsay) has been her first important work ordered by the government but she got her international reputation with Le marché aux chevaux (New York, Metropolitan Museum). During her lifetime, she was very successful as much in France than abroad, particularly in England and United States.