Madame LeBrun was one of the most prolific artists of all times. In her autobiography, entitled “Souvenirs,” she states that she finished six hundred and sixty-two portraits, fifteen large compositions, and two hundred landscapes, the latter sketched during her travels in Switzerland and England.
During the 18th Century Germany was the scene of the greatest activity of women artists. France held the second place and Italy the third, thus reversing the conditions of preceding centuries. Flanders and Antwerp too were famous for women artists, some of whom went to other countries where they were recognized for their talent and attainments.
The most famous woman artist of the 19th Century was =Rosa Bonheur=, born in 1832 at Bordeaux, the daughter of Raymond Bonheur, an artist of merit. From him she received her first instructions. In 1841 she began exhibiting in the Paris Salon, with several small animal paintings, indicating the direction in which she was to attain her future eminence. Her great success in painting animals was due to her conscientious study of living subjects. One of her masterpieces, “Plowing with Oxen,” ranks among the gems of the Luxembourg. Another excellent painting, “The Horse Fair,” was the chief attraction of the Paris Salon in 1853, and later on became the property of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Of all animal paintings ever executed, this one is perhaps the most animated, and the best in composition as well as in color. Another canvass, “Horses Threshing Corn,” shows the same merits. Containing ten horses in full life size, it is the largest animal picture ever produced.
After the painting by Rosa Bonheur in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. ]
Another painting, “The Monarch of the Glen,” received much praise at the World’s Columbian Exposition.
In just appreciation of her genius Rosa Bonheur was proposed in 1853 for the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but because of her sex the decoration was withheld until 1865.—
One of the four daughters of an early German pioneer of California, who distinguished themselves in different lines of activity, =Anne Elizabeth Klumpke= followed in the footsteps of Rosa Bonheur, of whom she became a close friend, and who, in appreciation of her great talent, bequeathed to her her beautiful chateau as well as her entire fortune.