The Horse Fair, c. 1854

Rosa Bonheur

French, 1822-1899

Oil on canvas

New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

When Rosa exhibited "The Horse Fair," at the Salon of 1853, her reputation as an artist was fairly well established by the paintings, drawings, and sculpture she had shown at the annual Salons since 1841, but few of her works attained the dash and grandeur of The Horse Fair," and none received the same acclaim.

 

Vastly admired on the Continent, where it was exhibited in Paris, Ghent, and Bordeaux, the painting was subsequently shown in England and the US. It has become one of the Metropolitan Museum's best-know works of art.

 

Bonheur began work on "The Horse Fair" in 1852. For a year and a half, she made sketches twice a week at the horse market in Paris on the Boulevard de l'Hopital,dressing as a man in order to attract less attention from the horse dealers and buyers. The picture shows with accuracy the trees lining the boulevard and the cupola of the Hopital de la Salpetriere nearby.

Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887

Done