The Horse Fair

A column of Percheron and Boulonnais dealers' horses surges past the crowd at the Paris market, rearing and jostling under the handlers' grip. Bonheur dressed as a man, police permit in her pocket, to sketch at the market and the slaughterhouses without being run off; the finished canvas toured Europe and America under a dealer's promotion and made her the most celebrated woman painter of her age. Watch the dealer at dead centre, hauling back on a grey rearing clean off its forefeet — the whole picture's motion is caught in that one wrist. Muscle painted this large refuses to stay background.

Maker

Rosa Bonheur, oil on canvas

Date

1852-1855

Medium of the original

Painting

Original held by

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Credit

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rights

Cleared for print

Catalogue number

PA-00053