Portrait of French artist, Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) painted in 1898 by American artist, Anna Klumpke (1856-1942).
Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Rosa Bonheur was a wild child, a feminist, a rule-breaker, defiant of social norms, and widely considered to be the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century, famed for the remarkable accuracy and detail of her pictures featuring animals.
Bonheur was a pioneer, a ground-breaker. She openly wore men’s clothing, she rolled her own cigarettes and smoked in public, and she wore her hair short.
This radical woman had two long-term same-sex relationships in her life, made clear in her writings and diaries. Nathalie Micas was a childhood friend and fellow painter. They lived together for four decades until Nathalie died in 1889. Rosa then met American painter Anna Klumpke ...
Having studied at the Académie Julian intermittently from 1880 until 1888 and worked as a portraitist in Boston, Anna Klumpke returned to France in 1898 to execute a portrait of Rosa Bonheur whom she had long admired. Shown at her easel, Bonheur wears on her jacket her medal of the Order of the Legion of Honor. The two women lived together at Château de By, Bonheur's home near Fontainebleau. Upon Bonheur's death, Klumpke inherited her residence and studio and dedicated herself to promoting Bonheur's legacy.
Photo of Bonheur and Klumpe in the comments.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, dailyartmagazine
...a good way to be.
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