The Horse Fair
The Horse Fair | |
---|---|
Artist | Rosa Bonheur |
Year | 1852-1855 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 244.5 cm × 506.7 cm (96.3 in × 199.5 in) |
Location | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
The Horse Fair is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist
The painting depicts dealers selling horses at the horse market held on the
The prime version of the painting has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1887, when it was donated by Cornelius Vanderbilt II. It is on view in Gallery 812. A smaller version is on display at the National Gallery in London.[2]
Background
Bonheur painted 'The Horse Fair' from a series of sketches of Percherons, and other draft horses, which she had made at the Paris horse market on the tree-lined Boulevard de l'Hôpital, near the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital,[3] which is visible in the background to the painting. She attended the market twice weekly for a year and a half from summer of 1850 to the end of 1851. She sought a permission de travestissement from the Paris police to dress as a man, to avoid drawing attention to herself.[1] She had earlier studied at a Paris slaughterhouse in 1845, a typical activity for an animal painter that she was the first woman to engage in, and had experienced harassment as a visible woman.[4][self-published source]
In addition to studies at the Paris horse market, she also modeled her animals on those from the Paris Omnibus Company.[4] She broke from tradition in depicting the horse eye as it is, rather than using anthropomorphism for emotional effect.[5] It has been suggested that one of the human figures is a self-portrait.
Bonheur routinely wore masculine clothes at home and in the country. The Horse Fair is printed as Plate 18 in Germaine Greer's book The Obstacle Race, in which she writes: "There was nothing titillating about the full trousers and painters' smocks that Bonheur wore", and quotes the artist herself as saying:
- "I am a painter. I have earned my living honestly. My private life is nobody's concern."[6]
Among the influences on Bonheur's work are the painters George Stubbs, Théodore Géricault, and Eugène Delacroix, and sculpture from Ancient Greece. She described the painting as her own Parthenon Frieze. It is signed and dated, "Rosa Bonheur 1853.5".
Exhibition
The painting was praised by the critics when it was first exhibited at the
The painting was subsequently shown in Ghent in 1853 and then in Bordeaux in 1854, but the city declined to buy it for
It was shown at various locations during a tour of Britain in 1855 to 1857. In London, the painting was shown in the home of
It was sold to cotton trader
Legacy and influence
The first engraving of the work was made by
Bonheur also made a second half-size replica, which she preferred, formerly in the collection of the McConnel family (owners of a cotton mill in
Painter Molly Luce claimed that The Horse Fair was the first work which influenced her in her decision to become an artist,[11] and the work also inspired a young Wayne Thiebaud.[12][13]
In the literary world, The Horse Fair inspired a 2000 anthology by poet Robin Becker.[14][15]
The painting, with its large scale, realistic style, and strong sense of movement, can be considered proto-cinematic.[5][16][17]
Bonheur's brother, Isidore Bonheur, cast a bronze relief plaque based on the painting for her monument at Fontainebleau. The memorial included a large statue of a bull, on a pedestal with four relief plaques reproducing her most popular paintings; it was destroyed in 1941, but a cast of the plaque is held by the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York.[18]
References
- ^ a b c d Miller, Asher Ethan (2016). "Rosa Bonheur | The Horse Fair | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Catalogue Entry. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
- ^ "Rosa Bonheur | The Horse Fair | NG621 | National Gallery, London". www.nationalgallery.org.uk. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
- .
- ^ ISBN 978-1413490404.
- ^ ISBN 9781555952280.
- ^ Greer, Germaine (1979). The Obstacle Race - The fortunes of women painters and their work. London: Secker & Warburg. p. 58.
- ^ "Rosa Bonheur". The New York Times. 9 August 1855. p. 4.
- ^ Glueck, Grace (19 December 1997). "ART REVIEW; Beyond Bonheur's 'Horse Fair'". The New York Times.
- ^ The Horse Fair, 1855, Rosa Bonheur and Nathalie Micas, National Gallery
- ^ Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, Sotheby's, 18 April 2007
- ISBN 978-0-940979-01-7.
- ^ Wayne Thiebaud on Rosa Bonheur's The Horse Fair | The Artist Project Season 1 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved 2017-09-25
- ISBN 978-0714873541.
- ^ "The Horse Fair, poems by Robin Becker". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ^ "BookDetails". www.upress.pitt.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ISBN 9780520085336.
- ISBN 9789053569443.
- ^ Isidore Jules Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1901, Dahesh Museum of Art
External links
- The Horse Fair, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Rosa Bonheur, De paardenmarkt (op de Boulevard de l'Hôpital, Parijs), ca. 1887, RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis