Le labourage rosa bonheur biography

Le laborage (The Labour), painting by Rosa Bonheur, 1844. Sotheby's/Wikimedia Commons.

Early artwork by Rosa Bonheur depicting a pair of horses ploughing a field, painted when she was only 22 years old.

Displayed at the Paris Salon in 1845, where it won third prize, resulting in a government commission of 3000 franks, which led to her first major success as an artist, Labourage nivernais (Ploughing in Nivernais), which was shown at the Salon in 1849 and won first prize. 

Labourage nivernais (Ploughing in Nivernais), painting by Rosa Bonhuer, 1849. Musée d'Orsay/Google Arts & Culture.

Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux in 1922 to Oscar-Raymond Bonheur, a landscape and portrait painter, and Sophie Bonheur, a piano teacher, her three siblings were also artists.

The Bonheurs were of Jewish origin, but practiced  Saint-Simonianism, which mixed Christian and socialist ideas, and, importantly for Rosa, taught that women should be e