Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), a renowned animal painter, was trained by her father, a minor landscape painter. He encouraged her interest in art and animals as her exclusive subject, allowing her to keep a menagerie in their home, including a sheep lived on the balcony of their sixth-floor Parisian apartment. Her unconventional lifestyle contributed to the myth that surrounded her during her lifetime. She smoked cigarettes in public, rode astride, and wore her hair short. To study the anatomy of animals, Bonheur visited the slaughterhouse; for this work, she favored men's attire and was required to obtain an official authorization from the police to dress in trousers and a smock.  While radical in her personal life, Bonheur was artistically conservative.