Why did Rosa Bonheur need police permission to wear trousers? | National Gallery

Artist Rosa Bonheur wore trousers, didn't ride side saddle and lived with her female partner, Nathalie Micas, in 19th-century France. She also painted a self portrait into the middle of one of her most spectacular works, 'The Horse Fair'.
But who was Rosa Bonheur? And how did she manage to challenge conventions of the time, living as a queer woman and one of the most celebrated female artists of the 1800s?
The Bernays Curatorial Fellow of British Paintings, Jon King, is joined by Art Historian and Independent Curator, Amy Mechowski, to discuss the life of Rosa Bonheur. They delve into her life as an artist and her love of animals, as well as exploring her queer identity and her relationship with Nathalie Micas.
🎨 Find out more about 'The Horse Fair': www.nationalgallery.org.uk/pa...
🖌️ Find out more about Rosa Bonheur: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ar...
Read more about Rosa Bonheur with our reading list:
Ashton, Dore. Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Legend (London: Secker & Warburg, 1981).
Chadwick, Whitney. ‘The Fine Art of Gentling: Horses, Women and Rosa Bonheur in Victorian England’, in Kathleen Adler and Marcia Pointon eds. The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture Since the Renaissance (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 89-107.
Fowler, Michael Anthony. ‘Rosa Bonheur the Amazon? Equestrianism, Female Masculinity, and The Horse Fair (1852-1855)’, Journal of Lesbian Studies (31 Oct 2023): 1-26.
Hewitt, Catherine. Art is a Tyrant: The Unconventional Life of Rosa Bonheur (Icon Books, 2020).
Saslow, James M. “Disagreeably Hidden’: Construction and Constriction of the Lesbian Body in Rosa Bonheur’s Horse Fair’, in Norma Broude and Mary Garrard eds., The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (Routledge, 1992), pp. 186-205.
#NationalGallery #ArtHistory #RosaBonheur #HerStory
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The National Gallery houses the national collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The museum is free of charge and open 361 days per year, daily between 10am - 6pm and on Fridays between 10am - 9pm.
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[@aperson900]

The National Gallery is a World Treasure. I can certainly see how this could be a self portrait and that adds to the enjoyment of the painting. I like how the figure in blue, it's face half hidden, is a place of calm and control amid the chaos and energy of the horses. My respect for female artists who made a place in the art world through sheer effort and talent knows no bounds.

[@purkaitsurajit53]

A sheer amount of hard work including countless preliminary drawings and sketches have surely been done by the great artist for producing such a great masterpiece!! It's a near perfect artwork in the sense that the posture and movement of every single horse and the men have all been produced meticulously!! Goes on to show the fantastic observing skills and fine eye for detail possessed by the great artist!! Many thanks to The National Gallery for explaining such a great masterpiece so beautifully!!😊😊❤❤

[@FigueiredoArtOdyssey]

What a beautiful way to introduce a self portrait in a great painting. This painting shows so muxh of her personality. Great artist. Bravo

[@nationalgallery]

Thank you for watching!

[@mabdub]

Wonderful tutorial. Thanks so much to the two of you.

[@hyperballadbradx6486]

Brilliant watch - she really does look so self assured, despite the chaos around her, a deep and firm gaze right at us - it could tell us a lot about her confidence in her skills as an artist, but also her place in a turbulent world - it's subversive and exciting, if we do accept that it's her! :-)

[@victorianidetch]

Nicely done, what an amazing women to be able to navigate her times with such a great talent.

[@danalaviano8579]

I am so grateful for your filming these lectures! I live in America and not able to visit the National Gallery in person but you enrich my life as though I were a British citizen so thank you very much for this.

[@amygoodwin9170]

Rosa's work is fantastic. Her work was so unique and realistic. An intriguing tale about her is included in "Arnolfini Art Mysteries 3" a superb book.

[@Figueiredoartconservation]

This is such a beauriful great painting, and what a brilliant explanation, Bravo.

[@isashax]

What an amazing painting and story! Thanks for telling us about it!

[@nationalgallery]

Our pleasure!

[@jannekh2]

Thanks so much for your presentations. I keep learning more and more…

[@rotterred991]

Excellent! I turned on the Closed Captions so that I could be sure I understood the author's name of that essay. Wouldn't you know it, the algorithm for the closed captions couldn't comprehend "Linda" so chose, instead, to name her "Linden." (I guess like "Lyndon" Johnson? Sheese!) However, I'm glad to report the essay is available for perusal as a PDF. Thank you for this outstanding look into a great artist's life and work.

[@nationalgallery]

Hi there, it looks like the automated captions were showing for you. Those have now been turned off and the correct captions are available instead! We're so happy to hear you enjoyed watching this video!

[@jillyb9995]

I'd not heard of Rosa Bonheur so this video was very educational. It looks like all hell is breaking loose at that horse market and all the while Rosa calmly gazes out at us completely unfazed by all the turmoil. Men, eh 😂

[@andrearoosth564]

The version in the Metropolitan is Breathtaking!

[@CallieMasters5000]

I thought he was saying the horse was the portrait of the artist, which seemed a bit hard to believe! 😂

[@maggiedaniels9562]

I first heard of Bonheur in the short story ' Le Mirror' by Robert Aickman.

[@grokeffer6226]

She had a lot of talent.

[@sacredkinetics.lns.8352]

Wonderful painting. interesting subject; hard environment in that era been a homosexual. Thank you so much.

[@nationalgallery]

Thank you for watching!

[@pencilsandlight1318]

Interesting! Thank you.

[@nationalgallery]

Thanks for watching!

[@paulcombs-bomuse6172]

In addition to the unjust dismissal of artists who are women, we also have what I find to be the absurdity of assigning “greatness,” and the effort to rank creative people by what is often a very subjective rubric.

[@DV-dt9sq]

Beautiful! I wonder if she partly succeeded because she had money (her family)...and I am thinking of all those women who didn't come from rich families but who had lots of talent, but that talent had to be depressed because they had to feed themselves. Is today any different? Artists forced to work other jobs (although art is not a job but an extension of artist life) to be able to have food, clothes, electricity etc. To many artist have to murder their soul so their bodies can "live" in everyday society.