FELICIE DE FAUVEAU.
Felicie was born in Tuscany, but was taken, when an infant, to Paris, where her education commenced. Her parents were persons of much intelligence and culture. Her mother had great taste for music and painting, and it was from her that her daughter’s talents received their first direction and encouragement. The family favored the aristocrats and Legitimists, and endured much in the cause of the Bourbons. Madame de Fauveau’s eyes had opened on the terrors of the guillotine, and she was as proud of those memories of exile, proscription, and the scaffold as most persons are of honor and titles. Her chivalrous loyalty looked on them as dignities, and the privilege of suffering for the family to which she was devoted was cheaply earned in her eyes by the ruin and exile of her own.
The daughter shared in the mother’s chivalrous sentiments, and her cherished ideas of monarchy and Romanism became perceptible in her conversation and works, while her self-sacrificing spirit of loyalty remained the same amid many vicissitudes. Owing to pecuniary losses, her parents were compelled, while she was yet very young, to remove successively to Limoux, Bayonne, and Besançon. While at Bayonne, in 1823, she met with many partisans in the war then raging on the frontiers of Spain—men whose loyalty amounted to fanaticism, and whose piety belonged to the ancient time of the Crusades; from these her youthful imagination must have received powerful and indelible impressions.
Her studies were varied and profound; ancient history, classic and modern languages, heraldry, and archæology received her devoted attention. The feudal and chivalric traditions of the Middle Ages were explored with eagerness by her, and she reproduced and utilized the knowledge thus acquired. During her residence in Besançon, she executed some oil-paintings which were much praised; but she seemed to feel that canvas was not the material which would most fully express her ideas. She had then received no instruction in modeling. One day, in her walk, she paused before the shop of one of the workmen who carve images of virgins and saints for village churches. Impelled irresistibly, she entered and made inquiries as to the method of work, learning thus the secrets of modeling in clay or wax, and of carving wood or gold. It then appeared that her vocation was decidedly for the plastic art. She had the faculty of coloring with skill, and might have been a great painter, had she not resolved to be a sculptor. Her taste led her to adopt the mediæval manner, and she took Benevenuto Cellini for her prototype, occupying herself with art in both its monumental and, decorative character.
At the death of her father, the family—consisting of the widow, two sons and three daughters—was in some distress. Felicie determined to devote her talents to their support. Some of her friends objected that such employment was unbecoming one who belonged to a noble family. “Unbecoming!” said she, drawing herself up with a noble pride; “Sachez qu’un artiste tel que moi est gentilhomme.”
The first work she exhibited was a group from Scott’s novel, “The Abbot.” Encouraged by its brilliant success, she produced a basso-relievo, consisting of six figures—Christina of Sweden and Monaldeschi in the fatal gallery of Fontainebleau. This work was in the Exposition des Beaux Arts, and it received from Charles X. in person the gold medal awarded by the jury. The dramatic energy of the group, the expression of the figures, and the beauty of the minor details won universal admiration, and it was hailed as offering the brightest promise of future excellence. The triumphant artist was then a girl in the bloom of early youth; and, flattered and delighted at the appreciation she met with, it is not to be wondered at that her resolution to adhere to the career she had chosen was steadfast and immovable.
Felicie remained in Paris with her family till 1830. Her mother’s house was the centre of a charming circle of persons of high rank, of cultivated women, and of accomplished artists, such as Scheffer, Steuben, Gassier, Paul Delaroche, Triqueti, Gros, Giraud, etc. So distinguished and agreeable was the mother, so sensible and so witty was the conversation of the daughter, that their society was coveted and prized. The friends assembled of an evening in their drawing-room would gather round a large centre-table, and improvise drawings in pencil, chalk, and pen and ink; or would model, in clay or wax, brooches and ornaments, sword handles and scabbards, dagger-hilts, etc. The young lady wished to revive those famous days when sculpture lent its aid to the gold and silver smith, the jeweler, the clock-maker, and the armorer. To her may be chiefly attributed the impulse given to this taste in Paris—a taste that infected England also, reviving mediæval fashions for ornaments, and also mediæval feelings and aspirations, which at last found expression in Puseyism in religion, and pre-Raphaelism in art.
She executed, for Count Portalès, a bronze lamp of singular beauty, representing a bivouac of archangels armed as knights. They are resting round a watch-fire, while one, St. Michael, is standing sentinel. It is in the old Anglo-Saxon style. Round the lamp, in golden letters, is the device, “Vaillant, veillant.” Beneath is a stork’s foot holding a pebble, a symbol of vigilance, surrounded by beautiful aquatic plants. The work was poetically conceived, and executed with great spirit and finish. She also commenced a work which she called “a monument to Dante,” and sketched an equestrian statue of Charles VIII. On returning from the expedition to Naples, it was said, the monarch paused on the ascent of the Alps, and turned to take a last farewell of the beautiful country—“wooed, not wed”—which he so unwillingly abandoned. The sculptress was most successful in rendering this expression of sadness and yearning. The pose of the horse was natural, yet commanding; and the work would doubtless have been a master-piece; but, unfortunately, the model had to be destroyed, on the breaking up of her studio.
Mademoiselle de Fauveau had now acquired an eminence and gained a celebrity which must have satisfied the most ambitious. She was incessantly occupied with commissions for most of the private galleries in France; and a place was promised her among those great artists who are employed to adorn public monuments, and whose works enrich public collections. She was to have modeled two doors for the gallery in the Louvre, after the manner of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise; a baptistery and pulpit in one of the metropolitan churches had been already spoken of, when the revolution of 1830 broke up this calm and noble existence, and ended her career in Paris.
To Mademoiselle de Fauveau, with her extreme opinions, this revolution was a personal calamity. She had identified the glory and greatness of France with the elder branch of the Bourbons. The times for her were evil and out of joint; she abhorred the Paris which had overthrown what she considered a legitimate, to set up a pseudo royalty, and she longed, with all the concentration and single-mindedness of her character, for an opportunity of leaving the city. This soon presented itself. Among other noble and distinguished persons who were proud of their acquaintance with this gifted woman, were members of the Duras family. The married daughter, who bore the beloved but fatal name of La Roche Jacquelein, sympathized entirely with the opinions and feelings of her namesake, Felicie. She invited the artist to leave Paris, and accompany her on a visit to her estates in La Vendée. During this visit, which was at first considered a mere relaxation from severe labor and study, riding, shooting, and hunting took the place of designing, modeling, and casting. But, after a while, a more serious purpose was contemplated, and a loftier end proposed. Mademoiselle de Fauveau found herself in the thick of a political conspiracy. A regular chouannerie was organized, and our poetical artist distinguished herself by her spirit, energy, and determination. To this day the peasantry in that part of France always speak of her as “la demoiselle.”
The authorities at last took umbrage, and a domiciliary visit was made to the chateau. The two ladies, warned in time, escaped, and took refuge in a neighboring farm-house. But arms and ammunitions were found in the chateau, with compromising letters and treasonable symbols. Orders were given to pursue and arrest the fugitives. The farm-house was searched in vain; the peasants were questioned, but their fidelity was unimpeachable. Unfortunately, however, some faint sounds were heard behind an oven; the grated door was removed, and the two rebels, who had so nearly defeated the search of their pursuers, were discovered, arrested, and sent under a strong guard to Angers.
At the first stage they stopped at an inn. The captives were conducted to a room up stairs; the door was locked, and their guards descended to the kitchen to refresh themselves. Presently a maid-servant was sent up to receive their orders for supper. In an instant, Madame de la Roche Jacquelein made herself understood by this woman. As soon as the supper was brought up, and the door closed, she effected an exchange of clothes, and, thus disguised, descended boldly, plates in hand, to the kitchen. She quickly deposited her burden on the dresser, and then, taking up the milk-pail, announced in the pretty patois of the country her intention to fetch the milk from the dairy. It is said the lady looked so captivating in her new costume that a gallant sergeant made advances to her, which she was obliged to repress vigorously, so as to proceed unattended. She reached the dairy, went out at a back door, crossed some fields, and was soon out of reach. Mademoiselle de Fauveau remained quietly in her room, allowing the servant to sleep with her, so as to lull all suspicion, and give as much time as possible for the escape. The next morning the evasion of Madame was discovered, and caused great consternation. It was thought necessary to take the most rigid precautions, such as obliging Mademoiselle de Fauveau to have a guard in her sleeping-room, who was authorized to disturb her whenever he wished to make sure of her presence, to prevent her following her friend’s example. She was thus transferred to Angers, and remained seven months in prison.
Her bold spirit and elastic temperament were not weakened or cast down by this destruction of her hopes. She took advantage of the forced seclusion to resume her occupations. In prison she modeled several small groups; one of them, composed of twelve figures, representing the duel of the Sire de Jarnee and the Count de la Chataignevaie in the presence of Henry II. and his court. She also designed a monument for Louis de Bonnechose, who had lately perished in an affray with some soldiers sent to arrest him. The background of this composition is architectural, in the Gothic style, adorned with the blazoned shields, achievements, and banners which belong peculiarly to the Vendean party. On the summit of the edifice is an angel, whose face is veiled, supporting the armorial shield of the deceased; in the foreground the Archangel Michael, terrible and victorious, has just killed the dragon. This dragon has a head like a cock—a type of the French republic. Michael bears in his right hand the avenging sword, and in his left holds a pair of crystal scales; in one of these are figures of judges, advocates, and magistrates; in the other, which weighs down these, is a single drop of blood, with this inscription:
“Quam gravis est sanguis justi inultus.”
In this sketch, as, indeed, in all Felicie’s works, the symbolical beauty inspires the whole; the ideal gives spirit to the material form, while the form receives its noblest distinction as the fitting vehicle of the idea.
After seven months’ imprisonment, Mademoiselle de Fauveau was set at liberty, and returned to Paris and her studio. Very soon afterward, the appearance of the Duchesse de Berri in Vendée set on fire all Royalist imaginations. Madame de la Roche Jacquelein and our fair artist again left Paris, and worked day and night for the cause so dear to their hearts, to reap again disappointment, failure, and misfortune. This episode in Felicie’s life may show how strong was the political bias which gave tone and character to both her private and artistic life. “My opinions are dearer to me than my art,” she said, and her actions proved this. She was one of the forlorn hope that stood up in the breach to save a falling dynasty; and with its ruins were ingulfed her own fortune, her prospects, and such part of her success as depended on the public recognition and acceptance of art in her own country.
After the failure of this second attempt of the Legitimists, Mademoiselle de Fauveau was among the persons exiled. She first took refuge in Switzerland; then returned to Paris, in the very teeth of the authorities, broke up her studio and establishment there, and went to Florence, where she fixed her permanent abode with her mother and brother.
Considerable expense and outlay are necessary to carry on the art of sculpture, and a removal from a studio in which were accumulated sketches, models, and marbles—most of them not portable—was almost total ruin. The forced sale of furniture; the transfer, at a heavy discount, of funds which had to be reinvested, added serious items to the amount of loss. From the fragments thus thrown aside fortunes were made. At the very time when the little family was enduring bitter privation in Florence, a man realized an almost fabulous sum by selling walking-sticks manufactured from designs made by Mademoiselle de Fauveau in those happy Paris evenings before mentioned.
The expense attendant on establishing a new studio in Florence had to be met by the labor of many years. Madame de Fauveau, at this period, was the guardian angel of the family, and thought no sacrifice too great for the encouragement of her daughter’s genius, and the advancement of her views. Her own poetical and imaginative mind aroused and fostered the ideas of the sculptress, while her unflinching resignation and humble faith soothed and solaced her heart.
With unparalleled nobleness, in spite of extreme poverty, the family refused to receive a sous from the princes or the party they had so served. No fleck of the world’s dust can be thrown on that spotless fidelity. It was at this period, when each day’s labor scarcely sufficed to provide for daily necessities, that Mademoiselle de Fauveau wrote to one of her friends, “We artists are like the Hebrews of old; manna is sent to us, but on condition we save none for the morrow.”
Brighter days dawned. Labor is not only its own reward, in the happiness it confers, but those who sow unweariedly and judiciously shall reap fairly. Our sculptress achieved a modest independence. It was probably at this time of her life that her friend the Baroness de Krafft sketched her character, dwelling on the contrasts presented by her history, in which her mind was developed, and the bent of her nature determined. “Fire, air, and water,” she says, “are in that organization;” and it is true that ardor, purity, and impulse are the characteristics of her genius. On the one hand we see the lady of the Faubourg St. Germaine, with all the habits, associations, and prejudices which belong to her order; on the other, the artist, earning her daily bread, and obliged to face in their reality the sternest necessities and most imperative obligations; the single woman treading victoriously the narrow and thorny path which all women tread who seek to achieve independence by their own exertions; and the genius which, to attain breadth and vigor, must freely sweep out of its path limitations and obstacles. These contrasts appear in her person and manner. Her glance, usually soft, can kindle and grow stern. Madame de Krafft notices that the movements of her arms are somewhat abrupt and angular, but her hands “are white, soft, and fine, royal as the hands of Cæsar, or of Leonardo da Vinci.”
Mademoiselle de Fauveau is described by a visitor as being fair, with low and broad forehead; soft, brown, penetrating eyes, aquiline nose, and mouth finely chiseled, well closed, and slightly sarcastic. Of the medium height, her figure is flexible and well formed. Her ordinary studio dress is velvet, of that “feuille morte” color Madame Cottin has made famous; with a jacket of the same fastened by a small leathern belt, a foulard round the neck, and a velvet cap. Her hair is blonde, cut square on the forehead and short on the neck, and left rather longer at the sides, in the Vandyke manner. The face, and figure, and presence, give the impress of a firm but not aggressive nature, revealing the energy of resistance, not of defiance. Opinions strongly held and enunciated, defended to the death, if necessary, give such an aspect. Combined with this peculiarity is a look of thoughtful melancholy, such as Retzch has represented in his sketches of Faust. In fact, the head, in a statuette of herself, might serve as an ideal of the world-famous student. There are two admirable likenesses of her: one by Ary Scheffer and one by Giraud.
Her dwelling is in the Via delle Fornace, where are also the studios of Powers and Fedi. A dark green door opens into a paved covered court, formerly the entrance to a convent, which is now adapted to form a modern habitation. On one side a flight of stairs leads to the upper rooms, another door leads to the studio; a third opens on a cool, quiet garden, shaded by trees. There are dovecotes, pigeon-houses, and bird-cages; and the walks are hedged with laurels and cypresses, while there are gay flowers mingled with Etruscan vases and jars. The artist’s drawing-room looks like the parlor of an abbess, furnished with antique hangings, carved chairs, silver crucifixes, and gold-grounded, pre-Raphaelite pictures, some of great beauty and value. From this drawing-room, half oratory and half boudoir, the visitor descends to the studio, which is composed of two or three large white-washed rooms on the ground floor.
The first thing that strikes one here is the evidence of the artist’s indefatigable industry. Here are casts and bassi-relievi from the antique, but no goddesses, nymphs, or cupids; it is Christian art of the mediæval period. Saints and angels cover the walls; in the centre is a large crucifix of carved wood, beautifully executed, and full of vigor and expression; near it is a Santa Reparata, designed in terra-cotta. Mademoiselle de Fauveau has been peculiarly successful in her adaptation of terra-cotta to artistic purposes. A large alto-relievo represents two freed spirits flying heavenward, dropping their earthly chains. A lovely St. Dorothea looks upward, and holds up her hands for a basket of flowers and fruit which a descending angel is bringing from Paradise. Bold and rapid movement is expressed in the flying figure. In the background is an architectural design of a church, and an inscription describing how it sprang, as it were, from the martyr’s blood. There is a Judith addressing the Israelites from an open gallery, with the head of Holofernes on a spear beside her. In the aspect of the resolute woman of Bethulia there is an undefinable resemblance to the artist. The expression, indeed, is congenial to her character, in which there is the concentration of purpose which gives force, and the ardor that gives decision to the will.
There are also works of a lighter character; the carved frame-work of a mirror, with an exquisite allegorical design—a fop and a coquette, in elaborate costume, are bending inward toward the glass, so intent on self-admiration as to be unconscious that a demon below has caught their feet in a line or snare from which they will not be able to extricate themselves without falling. Most of Mademoiselle de Fauveau’s works have superabundant richness of ornament and allegorical device. Her designs for gold and silver ornaments are unrivaled for elegance and imaginative picturesqueness.
She made for Count Zichy a Hungarian costume, the collar, belt, sword, and spurs being of the most finished workmanship. A silver bell, ornamented with twenty figures, for the Empress of Russia, represents a mediæval household, in the costumes of the period, and their peculiar avocations, assembling at the call of three stewards, whose figures form the handle. Round the ball is blazoned, in Gothic characters, “De bon vouloir servir le maître.”
It would be tedious to enumerate the works of this indefatigable artist. The finished specimens of twenty-five years of labor are shut up in private galleries, the models remaining in her studio. Her last and most imposing work is the monument in Santa Croce, erected to the memory of Louise Favreau by her parents. Madame de Krafft published a description of this in the Revue Britannique for March, 1857. Three monuments, in different styles, may be seen in the Lindsay chapel. In her studio are several busts of great beauty, strongly relieved by her method of placing an architectural back-ground. One is the bust of the Marquis de Bretignières, the founder of the reformatory school colony of Mettray.
Besides devoting herself to the actual expression of her ideas, Madame de Fauveau has, all her life, studied to improve the mere mechanical portion of her art. She endeavored to revive certain secrets known to the ancients, which have been abandoned and forgotten, to the detriment of modern sculpture. To cast a statue entire, instead of in portions, and with so much precision as to require no farther touch of the chisel—to preserve inviolate, as it were, the idea, while it is subject to the difficult process of clothing it with form, has been her life-long endeavor. In bronze, by means of wax, she succeeded, after repeated failures, with incredible perseverance. A figure of St. Michael in one of her works was thus cast seven times. The least obstacle, were it only the breadth of a pin’s point in one of the air-vents which are necessary to draw the seething metal into every part of the mould, is enough to destroy the work. At last her head workman brought her St. Michael complete; all the energy and delicacy of the original design being preserved, and none of the pristine freshness lost in the translation from wax to bronze.
Mademoiselle de Fauveau works almost incessantly, scarcely allowing herself any relaxation. Her principal associates are a few of the higher church dignitaries, and two or three distinguished Italian or foreign families. Retirement is agreeable to her, and her political opinions have drawn around her a line of demarkation. She has paid two visits to Rome: one when the Duc de Bordeaux was there. He paid her much attention, as did the two great princes of art, Cornelius and Tenerani, at that time in Rome. Thus situated, beloved by many, admired and appreciated by all, this clever artist and noble woman leads an honored life, which seems a realized dream of work, progress, and success.
From every point of view, a life so spent is a curious and interesting study. There is the independence belonging to an existence devoted to art, with almost cloistral simplicity and formality. She had been hardly ever separated from her proud and devoted mother till her death, in 1858. The loss left her inconsolable. Her brother, an artist of merit, resides with her, assists in most of her works, and is the support and comfort of her life. Her happy home and domestic relations have helped to expand and refine her genius. A woman’s art, as well as her heart, suffers when the home in which she works is uncongenial. Our artist’s name—Felicie—has proved a good omen for one who is at once “a good woman and a great artist.”
ROSA BONHEUR.[3]
[3] This sketch was prepared under the supervision of Mademoiselle Bonheur.
Rosalie Bonheur—as she is called in her acte de naissance—was born in Bordeaux on the 16th of March, 1822. Her father, Oscar Raymond Bonheur, was a painter of merit, who had in youth taken the highest honors at the exhibitions of his native town. He devoted part of his time to giving drawing-lessons in families for the support of his aged parents. An attachment sprung up between him and one of his pupils—Sophie Marqués—a lovely and accomplished girl. Her family opposed their union on account of the artist’s poverty; and after the marriage the young people were thrown entirely on their own resources. Rosalie was the eldest of their four children. Her father was compelled to give up his dreams of fame and the higher labors of his art, and for eight years maintained his family by teaching drawing.
Rosalie—or Rosa, as she has always called herself—was a wild, active, impetuous child, impatient of restraint, and having a detestation of study. She was a long time in acquiring even the elements of reading and writing. When not in the fields, she was in the garden. She remembers a gray parrot, a pet of her grandfather’s, that often called out “Rosa! Rosa!” in a voice like her mother’s, and would bring her in, when her mother would seize the opportunity to make her repeat her catechism. When the lesson was over, the little girl would scold the bird angrily for the trick it had played her. But if Rosa hated her books, she dearly loved all objects in nature, and was happiest when rambling in wood or meadow, gathering posies as large as herself. Her complexion was fair, with rosy cheeks; her light auburn hair curled in natural ringlets; and she was so plump that the Spanish poet Moratia, who then lived in Bordeaux, and spent his evenings at Bonheur’s, used to call her his “round ball.” He would romp with the merry child for hours together, and laugh over the rude figures she was fond of cutting out of paper. Rosa was fond of amusing herself in her father’s studio, drawing rough outlines on the walls, or burying her little fat hands in the clay, and making grotesque attempts at modeling, though these childish efforts were not noticed by her family as showing any genius. The exiled poet, however, saw the boldness, vigor, and originality of her nature, and often prophesied that his favorite would turn out, in some way, “a remarkable woman.”
In 1829 Raymond Bonheur quitted Bordeaux, and established himself with his family in Paris. Interested in the ideas then fermenting in the public mind, he entered into the excitement that preceded the Revolution of July. Periods of national effervescence are not favorable to art; the painter could not sell his pictures, and had to betake himself once more to giving drawing-lessons. His wife gave lessons on the piano; but the growing agitation of the social and political world made their united exertions profitless. Madame Bonheur sustained her husband’s courage throughout this trying period, while she was often compelled, after the day’s labors, to sit up half the night to earn with her needle a precarious support for the morrow. When public tranquillity returned, Bonheur resumed his teaching, and had some of his works noticed in the Paris Exhibition.
Madame Bonheur died in 1833. The father then placed the three elder children with an honest woman—La Mère Cathérine—who lived in the Champs Elysées; Juliette, the youngest, being sent to friends in Bordeaux. La Mère sent her little charges to the Mutual School of Chaillot. Rosa, now in her eleventh year, and detesting books and confinement as heartily as ever, generally contrived to avoid the school-room, and spent most of her time in the grassy and wooded spots afforded in the Bois de Boulogne, and other environs of Paris. Two years passed thus; the children being plainly clad and living on the humblest fare. Rosa meanwhile, with her passion for independence and outdoor life, incurred almost daily the angry reprimands of La Mère Cathérine, who was distressed at her neglect of school for her rambles. “I never spent an hour of fine weather indoors during the whole of the time,” she often said. But this sort of gipsy life could not last. Raymond Bonheur married again, took a house in the Faubourg du Roule, brought the three children home, and endeavored to put them in a way to make a position for themselves. The two boys—Auguste and Isidore—were placed in a respectable school, in which their father gave three lessons a week by way of payment; and Rosa, who could not be got to learn any thing out of a book, and seemed to have neither taste nor talent for any thing but rambling about in the sunshine, was placed with a seamstress, in order that she might learn to make a living by her needle.
Nothing could have been more disagreeable to the poor girl than the monotonous employment to which she was thus condemned. The mere act of sitting still on a chair was torture to her active temperament; she ran the needle into her fingers at every stitch, and bending over her hated task made her head ache, and filled her with inexpressible weariness and disgust. The husband of the seamstress was a turner, and had his lathe in an adjoining room. Rosa’s sole consolation was to slip into this room, and obtain the turner’s permission to help him work the lathe. If he were absent, she would do her utmost to set the lathe in motion by herself, more than once doing some damage to the turner’s tools. But these stolen pleasures were insufficient to compensate her for the repulsiveness of her new avocation; and whenever her father, with his pockets full of bonbons, came to see her and learn how she was getting on, she would throw herself into his arms in a passion of tears, and beseech him to take her away. Every week her distress became more and more evident; she lost her appetite and color, and was apparently falling ill. Her father was much disappointed at the ill success of his attempt to make of his wild daughter an orderly and industrious needle-woman; but he was too fond of her to persevere in an experiment so repugnant to her feelings. He therefore broke off the arrangement with the seamstress, and took her home.
After thinking over many plans for her, he at length succeeded in making an arrangement for her reception in a boarding-school in the Rue de Reuilly, Faubourg St. Antoine, on the same terms as those he had obtained for her brothers. A vast deal of good advice was expended on her, with many earnest exhortations to make the best use of the advantages of the school, by diligent application to her studies.
For a short time after her entrance into this establishment, Rosa was delighted with her new life, for she speedily became a favorite with her young companions, the leader in all their games, and the inventor of innumerable pranks. But the teachers were far from being equally satisfied with the new pupil, who could not be got to learn a lesson, and who threw the household into confusion with her doings. One of her favorite amusements was to draw caricatures of the governesses and professors; which caricatures, after coloring, she cut out very carefully, and contrived to fasten to the ceiling of the school-room, by means of bread patiently chewed to the consistence of putty, and applied to the heads of the figures. The sensation created by this novel exhibition of portraiture, and the ludicrous bowings and courtesyings of the paper figures, as they swayed over the heads of their originals, may be easily imagined. The pupils would go beside themselves with suppressed laughter; the teachers were naturally more displeased than diverted. The mistress of the establishment, struck with the vigor and originality of these drawings, caused them to be detached from the ceiling, and placed them privately in an album, where, it is said, they have been treasured to this day. But Rosa was none the less pronounced a very naughty girl; and she generally found herself condemned to bread and water about five days in the week.
Rosa Bonheur is by no means deficient in the faculty of acquiring knowledge, and has since made up, in her own way, for her early disinclination to study; but it was absolutely impossible for her, at that time, to constrain her mercurial temperament to the measured regularity of a class; and the only branch of study in which she made any progress was drawing, which she practiced assiduously, sharing the lessons given twice a week by her father in return for her schooling.
Rosa, however, was far from happy. Besides the constant trouble in which her love of frolic and mischief involved her, there was another annoyance that poisoned her peace, and gradually rendered her stay in the school intolerably painful.
All the other pupils being daughters of rich tradesmen, they were elegantly dressed, and had their silver forks and cups at table, and plenty of pocket-money for the gratification of their school-girl fancies. Rosa, with her calico frocks and coarse shoes, her iron spoon, tin mug, and empty pockets, felt keenly the inferiority of her position. Her father was as good and as clever as the fathers of her companions; why, then, was he not rich? Why must she wear calico and drink out of tin, while the other girls had silver mugs and beautiful silk dresses? Too generous to be envious, and treated as a favorite by the other pupils, the proud and sensitive child yet recoiled instinctively from a contact which awakened in her mind an unreasoning sense of injustice, and humiliated her, as she felt, for no fault of her own. She had no wish to deprive her little companions of the superior advantages of their lot, but she longed to possess the same, tormenting herself day and night with pondering on her difficulties, and seeking to devise some plan by which they might be overcome. To this period, with its secret mental experiences, is to be traced that firm resolve to achieve a name and a place for herself in the world—to a perception of whose social facts she was now beginning to awaken—which sustained her through the subsequent phases of her artistic development. Yet this resolve, though prompted by a galling sense of the humble character of her wardrobe and “belongings,” pointed less to the acquisition of greater elegance of dress and personal conditions—to which she has subsequently shown herself almost indifferent—than to the attainment of a superior and independent social position. She was determined to be something, though she could not see what, and felt no doubt of the accomplishment of her purpose, though as yet she had no idea of the mode in which it was to be carried out. Meanwhile, her secret discontent preyed on her spirits and affected her health. She became reserved and gloomy, and while seeking, with feverish anxiety, to devise the sort of work that should enable her to gain for herself the superior position she so ardently coveted, she became more and more neglectful of her studies, until, her teachers and her father being alike discouraged by her seeming idleness, the latter withdrew her from the school, and once more took her home.
More than ever perplexed what to do with her, her father now left her for a time entirely to herself. Thus abandoned to her own spontaneous actions, Rosa, who felt that the idle and aimless life she had hitherto led was little calculated to help her to the realization of her secret ambition, and who was full of unacknowledged regret and remorse for her incapacity and uselessness, sought refuge from her own uncomfortable thoughts in her father’s studio, where she amused herself with imitating every thing she saw him do; drawing and modeling, day after day, with the utmost diligence and delight, happy as long as she had in her hands a pencil, a piece of charcoal, or a lump of clay. In the quiet and congenial activity of the studio, her excited feelings became calm, and her ideas grew clearer; she began to understand herself, and to devise the path nature had marked out for her. As this change took place in her mind, the desultory and purposeless child became rapidly transformed into the earnest, self-conscious, determined woman. She drew and modeled from morning till night with enthusiastic ardor; and her father, amazed at her progress, and perceiving at last the real bent of her nature, devoted himself seriously to her instruction, superintending her efforts with the greatest interest and care. He took her through a serious course of preparatory study, and then sent her to the Louvre to copy the works of the old masters, as a discipline for her eye, her hand, and her judgment.
Surrounded and stimulated by the glorious creations of the great painters—the first to enter the gallery and the last to leave it—too much absorbed in her model to be conscious of any thing that went on around her, Rosa pursued her labors with unwavering zeal.
“I have never seen an example of such application, and such ardor for work,” remarked M. Jousselin, director of the Louvre, in describing the deportment of the young student.
The splendid coloring and form of the Italian schools, the lofty idealism of the German, and the broad naturalism of the Dutch, alike excited her enthusiasm; she studied them all with equal delight, and copied them with equal felicity. To aid her father in his arduous struggle for the support of his family, now increased by the birth of two younger children, was the immediate object of Rosa’s ambition; and, the admirable fidelity of her copies insuring them a speedy sale, this filial desire was soon gratified. She gained but a small sum for each, but so great was her industry that those earnings soon became an important item in the family resources.
One day, when she had just put the finishing touch to a copy of Les Bergers d’Arcadie, at the Louvre, an elderly English gentleman stopped beside her easel, and, having examined her work with much attention, exclaimed, “Your copy, mon enfant, is superb, faultless! Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist!” The stranger’s prediction gave the young painter much pleasure, and she went home that evening with her head full of joyous visions of future success.
Rosa was now in her seventeenth year, vowed to art as the aim and occupation of her life, cultivating landscape, historical, and genre painting with equal assiduity, but without any decided preference for either; when, happening to make a study of a goat, she was so much enchanted with this new attempt that she thenceforth devoted herself to the cultivation of the peculiar province in which she has commanded such brilliant success. Too poor to procure models, she went out daily into the country on foot, in search of picturesque views and animals for sketching. With a bit of bread in her pocket, and laden with canvas and colors, or a mass of clay—for she was attracted equally toward painting and sculpture, and has shown that she would have succeeded equally in either—she used to set out very early in the morning, and, having found a site or a subject to her mind, seat herself on a bank or under a tree, and work on till dusk; coming home at nightfall, after a tramp of ten or a dozen miles, browned by sun and wind, soaked with rain, or covered with mud; exhausted with fatigue, but rejoicing in the lessons the day had furnished.
Her inability to procure models at home also suggested to her another expedient, the adoption of which shows how earnest was her determination to overcome the obstacles poverty had placed in the way of her studies. The slaughtering and preparing of animals for the Paris market is confined to a few abattoirs, great establishments on the outskirts of the city, placed under the supervision of the municipal authorities. Each of these establishments contains extensive inclosures, in which are penned thousands of lowing and bleating victims, waiting their turn to be led to the shambles. To one of these—the abattoir du Roule—had Rosa the courage to go daily for many months, surmounting alike the repugnance which such a locality naturally inspired, and her equally natural hesitation to place herself in contact with the crowd of butchers and drovers who filled it. Seated on a bundle of hay, with her colors beside her, she painted on from morning till dusk, not unfrequently forgetting the bit of bread in her pocket, so absorbed would she become in the study of the varied types that rendered the courts and stables of this establishment so invaluable a field of observation for her. Not content with drawing the occupants of the abattoir in their pens, far from the sickening horror of the shambles, she felt the necessity of studying their attitudes under the terror and agony of the death-stroke, and compelled herself to make repeated visits to the slaughter-house; looking on scenes whose repulsiveness was rendered doubly painful to her by her affectionate sympathy with the brute creation. In the evening, on her return home, her hands, face, and clothes were usually spotted all over by the flies, so numerous wherever animals are congregated. Such was the respect with which she inspired the rude companions by whom she was surrounded, and who would often beg to see her sketches, which they regarded with the most naïve admiration, that nothing ever occurred to annoy her in the slightest degree during her long sojourns in the crowded precincts of the abattoir.
After she had ceased to visit this establishment, she frequented in a similar manner the stables of the Veterinary School of Alfort, and the animals and museums of the Garden of Plants. She also resumed her sketching rambles in the country, and resorted diligently to all the horse and cattle fairs held in the neighborhood of Paris. On the latter occasions she invariably wore male attire; a precaution she found it necessary to adopt, as a convenience, and still more, as a protection against the annoyances that would have rendered it impossible for her to mingle in such gatherings in feminine costume. In her masculine habit Rosa had so completely the look of a good-hearted, ingenuous boy, that the graziers and horse-dealers, whose animals she drew, would frequently insist on “standing treat” in a chopine of wine, or a petit verre of something stronger, to the “clever little fellow” whose skillful portrayal of their beasts had so much delighted them; and it sometimes required all her address and ingenuity to escape from their well-meant persecutions. Her good looks, too, in the assumed character of a youth of the sterner sex, would sometimes make sad havoc in the susceptible hearts of village dairy-maids. Some laughable incidents might be related under this head. In her subsequent explorations of the romantic regions at either foot of the Pyrenees, the passion with which she has unwittingly inspired the black-eyed Phœbes of the south has more than once proved a source of serious though comical embarrassment to the artist, desirous above all things to maintain impenetrably the secret of her disguise.
The young artist’s studies were not confined to the exterior forms of her models. She procured the best anatomical treatises and plates, with casts and models of the different parts of the human frame, and studied them thoroughly; she then procured legs, shoulders, and heads of animals from the butchers, carefully dissecting them, and thus obtaining an intimate knowledge of the forms and dependencies of the muscles whose play she had to delineate.
Now that Rosa has arrived at the fame her swelling child-heart prophesied to itself before she had ascertained the path that should lead to the fulfillment of her aspirations, the richest and noblest of her countrymen are proud to place at her disposal the finest products of their farms and studs; while mules, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs, and rare poultry are offered to her from one end of Europe to the other. But it is certain that the poverty and obscurity which, during her first years of effort, compelled her to frequent abattoirs and cattle-markets in search of subjects for her pencil were really of unspeakable service in forcing her to make acquaintance with a multitude of types under a variety of action and condition, such as she could never have seen in any other way, and in giving her a breadth of conception, variety of detail, and truthfulness to nature, which a more limited range of experience could not have supplied.
Through all her varied studies, Raymond Bonheur was his daughter’s constant and only teacher. M. Léon Cogniet, whose pupil she is erroneously said to have been, merely took a friendly interest in her progress, and warmly encouraged her to persevere. She never took a lesson of any other teacher than her father and nature.
Bonheur, with his family, now occupied small six-story rooms in the Rue Rumfort. His two sons had also devoted themselves to art under his auspices, Auguste being a painter, and Isidore a sculptor. The loving family, merry and hopeful in spite of poverty, labored diligently together in the same little studio. From daylight till dusk Rosa was always at her easel, singing like a linnet, the busiest and merriest of them all. In the evening, the frugal dinner dispatched and the lamp lighted, she would spend several hours in drawing illustrations for books, and animals for prints and for albums; or in moulding little groups of oxen, sheep, etc., for the figure-dealers—thus earning an additional contribution to the family purse.
Rosa delighted in birds, of which she had many in the studio; but it grieved her to see them confined. To her great joy, one of her brothers contrived a net, which he fastened to the outer side of the window, so that they could be safely let out of their cages. She had also a beautiful sheep, with long silky wool, the most docile and intelligent of quadrupeds, which she kept on the leads outside their windows, the leads forming a terrace, converted by her into a garden, gay with honeysuckles, cobeas, convolvulus, nasturtiums, and sweet-peas. As the sheep could not descend six flights of stairs, yet needed occasional exercise and change of diet, Isidore used to place it gravely on his shoulders, and carry it down to a neighboring croft, where it browsed on the fresh grass to its heart’s content, after which he would carry it back to its aerial residence. Thus carefully tended, the animal passed two years contentedly on the terrace, affording to Rosa and her brothers an admirable model.
It was in the Fine Arts Exhibition of 1841 that Rosa Bonheur made her first appearance before the critical Areopagus of Paris, attracting the favorable notice both of connoisseurs and public, by two charming little groups of a goat, sheep, and rabbits. The following year she exhibited three paintings: “Animals in a Pasture,” “A Cow lying in a Meadow,” and “A Horse for Sale,” which attracted still more notice, the first being specially remarkable for its exquisite rendering of the atmospheric effects of evening, and its blending of poetic sentiment with bold fidelity to fact.
From this period she appeared in all the Paris exhibitions, and in many of those of the provincial towns, her reputation rising every year, and several bronze and silver medals being awarded to her productions. In 1844 she exhibited, with her paintings, “A Bull” in clay, one of the many proofs she has given of powers that would have raised her to a high rank as a sculptor, had she not, at length, been definitively drawn, by the combined attractions of form and color, into the ranks of the painters. In the following year she exhibited twelve paintings—a splendid collection—flanked by the works of her father and her brother Auguste, then admitted for the first time. In 1846 her productions were accompanied by those of her father and both her brothers, the younger of whom then first appeared as a sculptor. The family group was completed in a subsequent exhibition by the admission of her younger sister, Julietta, who had returned to Paris, and had also become an artist. In 1849 her magnificent “Cantal Oxen” took the gold medal. Horace Vernet, president of the committee of awards, proclaimed the new laureat in presence of a brilliant crowd of amateurs, presenting her with a superb Sèvres vase in the name of the government; the value of a triumph which placed her ostensibly in the highest rank of her profession being immeasurably enhanced in her eyes by the unbounded delight it afforded to her father.
Raymond Bonheur, released from pecuniary difficulty, and rejuvenated by the joy of his daughter’s success, had accepted the directorship of the government school of design for girls, and resumed his palette with all the ardor of his younger days. But his health had been undermined by the fatigues and anxieties he had borne so long, and he died of heart disease in 1849, deeply regretted by his family. Rosa, who had aided him in the school of design, was now made its directress. She still holds the post, her sister, Madame Peyrol, being the resident professor, and Rosa superintending the classes in a weekly lesson.
Her already brilliant reputation was still farther enhanced by the appearance, in 1849, of her noble “Plowing Scene in the Nivernais,” ordered by the government, and now in the Luxembourg Gallery; of the “Horse-market,” in 1853, the preparatory studies for which occupied her during eighteen months; and the “Hay-making,” in 1855. The last two works created great enthusiasm in the public mind.
More fortunate than many other great artists, whose merits have been slowly acknowledged, Rosa Bonheur has been a favorite with the public from her first appearance. Her vigorous originality, her perfect mastery of the technicalities and mechanical details of her art, and the charm of a style at once fresh and simple, and profoundly and poetically true, ensured for her productions a sympathetic appreciation and a rapid sale. She had produced, up to June, 1858, thirty-five paintings; and many more, not exhibited, have been purchased by private amateurs. In these the peculiar aspect of crag, mountain, valley, and plain—of trees and herbage; the effects of cloud, mist, and sunshine, and of different hours of the day—are as profoundly and skillfully rendered as are the outer forms and inner life of the animals around which the artist, like nature, spreads the charm and glory of her landscapes. She has already made a fortune, but has bestowed it entirely on others, with the exception of a little farm a few miles from Paris, where she spends a great deal of her time. Such is her habitual generosity, and so scrupulous is her delicacy in all matters connected with her art, that it may be doubted whether she will ever amass any great wealth for herself. Her port-folios contain nearly a thousand sketches, eagerly coveted by amateurs; but she regards these as a part of her artistic life, and refuses to part with them on any terms. A little drawing that accidentally found its way into the hands of a dealer, a short time since, brought eighty pounds in London. Rosa had presented it to a charity, as she now and then does with her drawings. Demands for paintings reach her from every part of the world; but she refuses all orders not congenial to her talent, valuing her own probity and dignity above all price.
The award of the jury in 1853—in virtue of which the authoress of “The Horse-market” was enrolled among the recognized masters of the brush, and as such exempted from the necessity of submitting her works to the examining committee previous to their admission to future exhibitions—entitled her, according to French usage, to the cross of the Legion of Honor. This decoration was refused to the artist by the emperor because she was a woman!
The refusal, repeated after her brilliant success of 1855, naturally excited the indignation of her admirers, who could not understand why an honor that would be accorded to a certain talent in a man should be refused to the same in a woman. But, though Rosa was included in the invitation to the state dinner at the Tuileries, always given to the artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts has awarded its highest honor, the refusal of the decoration was maintained, notwithstanding numerous efforts made to obtain a reversal of the imperial decree.
A visitor describes the studio of this world-renowned artist. At the southern end of the Rue d’Assas—a retired street, half made up of extensive gardens, the tops of trees alone visible above the high stone walls—just where, meeting the Rue de Vaugirard, it widens into an irregular little square, surrounded by sleepy-looking, old-fashioned houses, and looked down upon by the shining gray roofs and belfry of an ancient Carmelite convent—is a green garden-door, surmounted by the number “32.” A ring will be answered by the barkings of one or two dogs; and when the door is opened by the sober-suited serving-man, the visitor finds himself in a garden full of embowering trees. The house, a long, cozy, irregular building, standing at right angles with the street, is covered with vines, honeysuckles, and clematis. A part of the garden is laid out in flower-beds; but the larger portion—fenced off with a green paling, graveled, and containing several sheds—is given up to the animals kept by the artist as her models. There may be seen a horse, a donkey, four or five goats, sheep of different breeds, ducks, cochinchinas, and other denizens of the barn-yard, all living together in perfect amity and good-will.
On fine days the artist may be found seated on a rustic chair inside the paling, busily sketching one of these animals, a wide-awake or sun-bonnet on her head. If the visitor comes on a Friday afternoon, the time set apart for Rosa’s receptions, he is ushered through glass doors into a hall, where the walls are covered with paintings, orange-trees and oleanders standing in green tubs in the corners, and the floor (since the artist crossed the Channel!) covered with English oil-cloth. From this hall a few stairs, covered with thick gray drugget, lead to the atelier, on Fridays turned into the reception-room.
This beautiful studio, one of the largest and most finely proportioned in Paris, with its greenish-gray walls, and plain green curtains to lofty windows that never let in daylight—the room being lighted entirely from the ceiling—has all its wood-work of dark oak, as are the book-case, tables, chairs, and other articles of furniture—richly carved, but otherwise of severe simplicity—distributed about the room. The walls are covered with paintings, sketches, casts, old armor, fishing-nets, rude baskets and pouches, poles, gnarled and twisted vine-branches, picturesque hats, cloaks, and sandals, collected by the artist in her wanderings among the peasants of various regions; nondescript draperies, bones and skins of animals, antlers and horns. The fine old book-case contains as many casts, skeletons, and curiosities as books, and is surrounded with as many busts, groups in plaster, shields, and other artistic booty, as its top can accommodate; and the great Gothic-looking stove at the upper end of the room is covered in the same way with little casts and bronzes. Paintings of all sizes, and in every stage of progress, are seen on easels at the lower end of the room, the artist always working at several at a time. Stands of port-folios and stacks of canvas line the sides of the studio; birds are chirping in cages of various dimensions, and a magnificent parrot eyes you suspiciously from the top of a lofty perch. Scattered over a floor as bright as waxing can make it, are skins of tigers, oxen, leopards, and foxes—the only species of floor-covering admitted by the artist into her workroom. “They give me ideas,” she says of these favorite appurtenances; “whereas the most costly and luxurious carpet is suggestive of nothing.”
But the suggestion of picturesque associations is not the only service rendered by these spoils of the animal kingdom. One sultry Friday afternoon, one of her admirers, going earlier than her usual reception hour, found her lying fast asleep under the long table at the upper end of the studio, on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with stuffed head and spreading horns; her head resting lovingly on that of the animal. She had come in very tired from her weekly review of the classes at the School of Design, and had thrown herself down on the skin, under the shade of the table, to rest a few moments. There was so much natural grace and simplicity in her attitude, such innocence and peacefulness in her whole aspect, and so much of the startled child in her expression, as, roused by the opening and shutting of the door, she awoke and started to her feet, that the picture seemed as beautiful as any created by the pencil.
Here Rosa Bonheur receives her guests with the frankness, kindness, and unaffected simplicity for which she is so eminently distinguished. In person she is small, and rather under the middle height, with a finely-formed head, and broad rather than high forehead; small, well-defined, regular features, and good teeth; hazel eyes, very clear and bright; dark-brown hair, slightly wavy, parted on one side and cut short in the neck; a compact, shapely figure; hands small and delicate, and extremely pretty little feet. She dresses very plainly, the only colors worn by her being black, brown, and gray; and her costume consists invariably of a close-fitting jacket and skirt of simple materials. On the rare occasions when she goes into company—for she accepts very few of the invitations with which she is assailed—she appears in the same simple costume, of richer materials, with the addition merely of a lace collar. She wears none of the usual articles of feminine adornment; they are not in accordance with her thoughts and occupations. At work she wears a round pinafore or blouse of gray linen that envelops her from the neck to the feet. She impresses one at first sight with the idea of a clear, honest, vigorous, independent nature; abrupt, yet kindly; original, self-centred, and decided, without the least pretension or conceit; but it is only when you have seen her conversing earnestly and heartily, her enthusiasm roused by some topic connected with her art, or with the great humanitary questions of the day; when you have watched her kindling eyes, her smile at once so sweet, so beaming, and so keen, her expressive features irradiated, as it were, with an inner light, that you perceive how very beautiful she really is. To know how upright and how truthful she is, how single-minded in her devotion to her art, how simple and unassuming, fully conscious of the dignity of her artistic power, but respecting it rather as a talent committed to her keeping than as a quality personal to herself, you must have been admitted to something more than the ordinary courtesy of a reception-day. While, if you would know how noble and how self-sacrificing she has been, not only to every member of her own family, but to others possessing no claim on her kindness but such as that kindness gave them, you must learn it from those who have shared her bounty, for you will never know a word of it from herself.
Her dislike to being written about will prevent many interesting particulars in regard to her from becoming known; but, if they ever come to light, they will show her life replete with noble teachings, and that the great painter whose fame will go down to coming ages was as admirable a woman as she was gifted as an artist; that her moral worth was no less transcendent than her genius.
Rosa Bonheur is an indefatigable worker. She rises at six, and paints until dusk, when she lays aside her blouse, puts on a bonnet and shawl of most unfashionable appearance, and takes a turn through the neighboring streets alone, or accompanied only by a favorite dog. Absorbed in her own thoughts, and unconscious of every thing around her, the first conception of a picture is often struck out by her in these rapid, solitary walks in the twilight.
Living solely for her art, she has gladly resigned the cares of her outward existence to an old and devoted friend, Madame Micas, a widow lady, who, with her daughter, resides with her. Mademoiselle Micas is an artist, and her beautiful groups of birds are well known in England. She has been for many years Rosa’s most intimate companion. Every summer the two artists repair to some mountain district to sketch. Arrived at the regions inhabited only by the chamois, they exchange their feminine habiliments for masculine attire, and spend a couple of months in exploring the wildest recesses of the hills, courting the acquaintance of their shy and swift-footed tenants, and harvesting “effects” of storm, rain, and vapor as assiduously as those of sunshine. Though Rosa is alive to the beauties of wood and meadow, mountain scenery is her especial delight. Having explored the French chains and the Pyrenees, in the autumn of 1856 she visited Scotland, and made numerous sketches in the neighborhood of Glenfallock, Glencoe, and Ballaculish. Struck by the beauty of the Highland cattle, she selected some choice specimens of these, which she had sent down to Wexham Rectory, near Windsor, where she resided, and spent two months in making numerous studies, from which she produced two pictures: “The Denizens of the Mountains” and “Morning in the Highlands.” Her preference for the stern, the abrupt, and the majestic over the soft, the smiling, and the fair, makes Italy, with all its glories, less attractive to her than the ruder magnificence of the Pyrenees and the north.
Among mountains the great artist is completely in her element; out of doors from morning till night, lodging in the humblest and remotest of road-side hotels, or in the huts of wood-cutters, charcoal-burners, and chamois-hunters, and living contentedly on whatever fare can be obtained. In 1856, being furnished by families of distinction in the Béarnais and the Basque provinces with introductions, her party pushed their adventurous wanderings to the little station of Peyronère, the last inhabited point within the French frontier, and thence up the romantic defiles of the Vallée d’Urdos, across the summit of the Pyrenees. Their letters procured them a hospitable reception at each halting-place, with a trusty guide for the next march. In this way they crossed the mountains, and gained the lonely posada of Canfan, the first on the Spanish side of the ridge, where, for six weeks, they saw no one but the muleteers with their strings of mules, who would halt for the night at the little inn, setting out at the earliest dawn for their descent of the mountains.
The people of the posada lived entirely on curdled sheep’s milk, the sole article of food the party could obtain on their arrival. At one time, by an early fall of snow, they were shut out from all communication with the valley. Their threatened starvation was averted by the exertions of Mademoiselle Micas, who managed to procure a quantity of frogs, the hind legs of which she enveloped in leaves, and toasted on sticks over a fire on the hearth. On these frogs they lived for two days, when the hostess was induced to attempt the making of butter from the milk of her sheep, and even to allow the conversion of one of these animals into mutton for their benefit. Their larder thus supplied, and black bread being brought for them by the muleteers from a village a long way off, they gave themselves up to the pleasures of their wild life and the business of sketching. The arrival of the muleteers, in their embroidered shirts, pointed hats, velvet jackets, leathern breeches, and sandals, was always a welcome event. Rosa paid for wine for them, and they, in return, performed their national dances for her, after which they would throw themselves down for the night upon sheepskins before the fire, furnishing subjects for many picturesque croquis. As the posada was a police-station, established there as a terror to smugglers, the little party felt perfectly safe, notwithstanding its loneliness.
Rosa was much pleased with her Scotch tour. She brought away a wonderful little Skye terrier, named “Wasp,” of the purest breed, and remarkably intelligent, which she holds in great affection. She has learned for its benefit several English phrases, to which “Wasp” responds with appreciative waggings of the tail.
Rosa Bonheur has avowed her determination never to marry. Determined to devote her life to her favorite art, she may be expected to produce a long line of noble works that will worthily maintain her present reputation; while the virtues and excellences of her private character will win for her an ever-widening circle of admiration and respect.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The Practice of Art in America.—Number of women Artists increasing.—Prospect flattering.—Imperfection of Sketches of living Artists.—Rosalba Torrens.—Miss Murray.—Mrs. Lupton.—Miss Denning.—Miss O’Hara.—Mrs. Darley.—Mrs. Goodrich.—Miss Foley.—Miss Mackintosh and others.—Mrs. Ball Hughes.—Mrs. Chapin.—Sketch of Mrs. Duncan.—The Peale Family.—Anecdote of General Washington.—Mrs. Washington’s Punctuality.—Miss Peale an Artist in Philadelphia.—Paints Miniatures.—Copies Pictures from great Artists.—She and her Sister honorary Members of the Academy.—Her prosperous Career.—Paints with her Sister in Baltimore and Washington.—Marriage and Widowhood.—Return to Philadelphia.—Second Marriage.—Happy Home.—Mrs. Yeates.—Miss Sarah M. Peale.—Success.—Removal to St. Louis.—Miss Rosalba Peale.—Miss Ann Leslie.—Early Taste in Painting.—Visits to London.—Copies Pictures.—Miss Sarah Cole.—Mrs. Wilson.—Intense Love of Art.—Her Sculptures.—Her impromptu Modeling of Emerson’s Head.—Mrs. Cornelius Dubois.—Her Taste for the Sculptor’s Art.—Groups by her.—Studies in Italy.—Her Cameos.—Her Kindness to Artists.—Miss Anne Hall.—Early Love of Painting.—Lessons.—Copies old Paintings in Miniature.—Her original Pictures.—Her Merits of the highest Order.—Groups in Miniature.—Dunlap’s Praise.—Her Productions numerous.—Mary S. Legaré.—Her Ancestry.—Mrs. Legaré.—Early Fondness for Art shown by the Daughter.—Her Studies.—Little Beauty in the Scenery familiar to her.—Colonel Cogdell’s Sympathy with her.—Success in Copying.—Visit to the Blue Ridge.—Grand Views.—Paintings of mountain Scenery.—Removal to Iowa.—“Legaré College.”—Her Erudition and Energy.—Her Marriage.—Herminie Dassel.—Reverse of Fortune.—Painting for a Living.—Visit to Vienna and Italy.—Removal to America.—Success and Marriage.—Her social Virtues and Charity.—Miss Jane Stuart.—Mrs. Hildreth.—Mrs. Davis.—Mrs. Badger’s Book of Flowers.—Mrs. Hawthorne.—Mrs. Hill.—Mrs. Greatorex.—Mrs. Woodman.—Miss Gove.—Miss May.—Miss Granbury.—Miss Oakley.
In America the practice of art by woman is but in its commencement. Although many names of female artists are now familiar to the public, and the number is rapidly increasing, few have had time to accomplish all for which they may possess the ability. The prospect, however, is one most flattering to our national pride.
The sketches of living American women who are pursuing art are chiefly prepared from materials furnished by their friends. They are given in simplicity, and may appear imperfect, but we hope indulgence may be extended to them where they are inadequate to do justice to the subject.
Rosalba Torrens is mentioned by Ramsay, in his History of South Carolina, as a meritorious landscape-painter. Praise is also bestowed on Eliza Torrens, afterward Mrs. Cochran. Miss Mary Murray painted in crayons and water-colors in New York, and produced many life-sized portraits, which gained her celebrity. Madame Planteau painted in Washington about 1820, and was highly esteemed.
Dunlap mentions Mrs. Lupton as a modeler. She presented a bust of Governor Throop to the National Academy of Design in New York, of which she was an honorary member. Many of her paintings elicited high commendation. She executed many busts in clay, of her friends. There was hardly a branch of delicate workmanship in which she did not excel, and her literary attainments were varied and extensive. She was an excellent French scholar, and a proficient in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, besides having mastered the Hebrew sufficiently to read the Old Testament with ease. In English literature she was thoroughly versed, and was an advanced student in botany and natural history.
She was the daughter of Dr. Platt Townsend, and was married early in life. Mr. Lupton, a gentleman of high professional and literary attainments, resided in the city of New York. After his death his widow devoted herself to study, that she might be qualified to educate her young daughter, and, after the loss of this only child, pursued knowledge as a solace for her sorrows. Her talents and accomplishments, her elevated virtues and charities, and her attractive social qualities drew around her a circle of warm and admiring friends. She lived a short time in Canada, and died at the house of a relative on Long Island.
Miss Charlotte Denning, of Plattsburgh, is spoken of as a clever miniature-painter, and also Miss O’Hara, in New York. Miss Jane Sully (Mrs. Darley), the daughter of the celebrated artist, is mentioned as an artist of merit. Mrs. Goodrich, of Boston, painted an excellent portrait of Gilbert Stuart, which was engraved by Durand for the National Portrait Gallery. Her miniatures have great merit, and are marked by truth and expression.
Margaret Foley was a member of the New England School of Design, and gave instruction in drawing and painting. She resided in Lowell, and was frequently applied to for her cameos, which she cut beautifully. Miss Sarah Mackintosh was accustomed to draw on stone for a large glass company, and other ladies designed in the carpet factory at Lowell and in the Merrimack print-works, showing the ability of women to engage in such occupations.
Several have made a livelihood by the business of engraving on wood, and drawing for different works.
Mrs. Ball Hughes, of Boston, the wife of the sculptor, supported her family by painting and by giving lessons in the art. Mrs. Chapin had a large drawing school in Providence, and, with facility in every style, is said to be admirable in crayons. Many others might be mentioned, but it does not comport with the design of this work to record even the names of all who deserve the tribute of praise.