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Rosa Bonheur by Anna Elizabeth Klumpke

Anna Elizabeth Klumpke · 1898-01-01

View the artwork: Rosa Bonheur →

Anna Klumpke's 1898 portrait of Rosa Bonheur hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It looks like a formal portrait of an eminent artist with her medal of honor. It is also a love story, preserved in oil.

Rosa Bonheur was the most famous female painter of the 19th century, a legend for her massive animal canvases. She obtained a police permit to wear trousers so she could visit slaughterhouses and horse fairs to study anatomy. She lived openly with women, built her own chateau, and became the first woman to receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Klumpke, an American portraitist, came to paint her in 1898. The sitting lasted months. They wrote daily, translated each other's biographies, and fell in love. Klumpke became her partner and, after Rosa's death, her sole heir and biographer. The portrait shows Bonheur at sixty-seven, silver-haired and weathered, holding drawings in the studio where she spent her life.

A woman's hands, gripping paper. A red ribbon. An unfinished canvas in the background. The whole life is here, painted by someone who had come to know it utterly.

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Details

The central subject's face , weathered, composed, and radiating quiet authority; her silver hair signals age and distinction earned over a long career.
The central subject's face , weathered, composed, and radiating quiet authority; her silver hair signals age and distinction earned over a long career.
The restrained, almost masculine dress was characteristic of Bonheur, who wore trousers by police permit , her clothing is a statement of unconventional identity.
The restrained, almost masculine dress was characteristic of Bonheur, who wore trousers by police permit , her clothing is a statement of unconventional identity.
The loosely rendered silver hair is a virtuoso passage of brushwork , white, grey, and warm highlights built up to convey both age and vivacity.
The loosely rendered silver hair is a virtuoso passage of brushwork , white, grey, and warm highlights built up to convey both age and vivacity.
She holds what appear to be drawings or documents, grounding her identity as a working artist rather than merely a social subject.
She holds what appear to be drawings or documents, grounding her identity as a working artist rather than merely a social subject.
Hands that have painted thousands of animals , the grip is relaxed but purposeful, a detail a slow camera can dwell on to convey a life of labor.
Hands that have painted thousands of animals , the grip is relaxed but purposeful, a detail a slow camera can dwell on to convey a life of labor.
Transcript

She arrived to paint a portrait. She stayed a lifetime. Rosa Bonheur was France's most famous animal painter. She wore trousers by police permit. She lived by her own laws. Look at her hands. They painted thousands of creatures into life. The red ribbon was France's highest honor. Few women earned it. The painter, Anna Klumpke, fell in love with her subject. They lived together at her chateau until Bonheur's death.