1. Rosa Bonheur's paintings include Ploughing in the Nivernais, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848, and now in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, and The Horse Fair, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Rosa Bonheur was born on 16 March 1822 in Bordeaux, Gironde, the oldest child in a family of artists.
Rosa Bonheur's mother was Sophie Bonheur, a piano teacher; she died when Rosa was eleven.
Rosa Bonheur's father was Oscar-Raymond Bonheur, a landscape and portrait painter who encouraged his daughter's artistic talents.
Rosa Bonheur moved to Paris in 1828 at the age of six with her mother and siblings, after her father had gone ahead of them to establish a residence and income there.
Rosa Bonheur's mother taught her to read and write by asking her to choose and draw a different animal for each letter of the alphabet.
Rosa Bonheur's father allowed her to pursue her interest in painting animals by bringing live animals to the family's studio for studying.
Rosa Bonheur studied animal anatomy and osteology in the abattoirs of Paris and dissected animals at the Ecole nationale veterinaire d'Alfort, the National Veterinary Institute in Paris.
Rosa Bonheur exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Rosa Bonheur was the first female artist to be given this award.
Rosa Bonheur was represented by the art dealer Ernest Gambart.
Many engravings of Rosa Bonheur's work were created from reproductions by Charles George Lewis, one of the finest engravers of the day.
Rosa Bonheur was known for wearing men's clothing; she attributed her choice of trousers to their practicality for working with animals.
Rosa Bonheur lived with her first partner, Nathalie Micas, for over 40 years until Micas' death, and later began a relationship with the American painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke.
Rosa Bonheur did not do this because she wanted to be a man, though she occasionally referred to herself as a grandson or brother when talking about her family; rather, she identified with the power and freedom reserved for men.
Rosa Bonheur never explicitly said she was a lesbian, but her lifestyle and the way she talked about her female partners suggest this.
Rosa Bonheur, while taking pleasure in activities usually reserved for men, viewed her womanhood as something far superior to anything a man could offer or experience.
Rosa Bonheur viewed men as stupid and mentioned that the only males she had time or attention for were the bulls she painted.
Rosa Bonheur had her partners focus on the home life while she took on the role of breadwinner by concentrating on her painting.
Rosa Bonheur's legacy paved the way for other lesbian artists who didn't favour the life society had laid out for them.
Rosa Bonheur died on 25 May 1899, at the age of 77, at Thomery, France.
Rosa Bonheur was buried together with Nathalie Micas, her lifelong companion and lover, at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park is a pet cemetery located in Elkridge, Maryland, established in 1935, and actively operated until 2002.
Each of the four locations of Rosa Bonheur is home to a multilingual pop choir, collectively known as "Viens Chanter Bonheur," which is led by musician and ceramic artist Damien Bousquet.
The first biography of Bonheur was published during her lifetime: a pamphlet written by Eugene de Mirecourt, Les Contemporains: Rosa Bonheur, which appeared just after her Salon success with The Horse Fair in 1856.
Klumpke's biography, published in 1909 as Rosa Bonheur: sa vie, son oeuvre, was translated in 1997 by Gretchen Van Slyke and published as Rosa Bonheur: The Artist's biography, so-named because Klumpke had used Bonheur's first-person voice.
Reminiscences of Rosa Bonheur, edited by Theodore Stanton, was published in London and New York in 1910.