(Landseer’s portrait of himself. )
Sir Edwin has passed from us, but Rosa Bonheur still lives, and still occupies her serene life with the art she loves. There is a well-known and charming picture of her earlier self, with the dark hair tossed back from a bright, courageous face, and one arm resting in calm assurance of mutual good-will on the neck of a shaggy steer. This indicates a preference both personal and artistic. She has always delighted in painting cattle; and the patient oxen of the Nivernais, no less than the picturesque, long-haired cattle of the Scotch Highlands, attest her loving study of their ways. Deer, too, she enjoys painting, and horses; while Wasp, the terrier, will hold his own even beside Landseer’s canine portraits.
PAUL PRY, A MEMBER OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY.
(After Landseer’s painting. )
Mlle. Bonheur’s home at Fontainebleau is fairly alive with pets; sheep, horses, goats and dogs; creatures with pedigree and without it; creatures famous for their beauty or remarkable for their rarity. Not only does she entertain peaceable, home-loving animals, but also such fierce inmates as lions and tigers. From one of the former was painted her magnificent “Old Monarch,” which fronts squarely the spectator like one “every inch a king.” Her “Tiger” is the faithful likeness of a pet brought to her as a cub from the jungles of Bengal. Nero was his well-bestowed name—a name appropriate to the latent power and ferocity which might become terribly apparent should he ever have the chance or wish to exert them. But this has never happened. Temptations to naughtiness are carefully removed from his path, his will is rarely crossed, his tastes are consulted. Roomily lodged, amply fed, he is probably the most civilized tiger in existence.
Mlle. Bonheur is convinced of his affection, but it is doubtless as fortunate for the world as for herself that she never entered his cage. This superb favorite cost about three thousand dollars, and as His Majesty’s meat diet is also very expensive, he may be accounted in more ways than one a dear pet.
Several wild horses were at one time added to the studio “properties”; and lately a Russian nobleman presented Mlle. Bonheur with a couple of magnificent Russian bears, to which she is said to be much attached.
Paris is a city dear to artists, and almost every nationality is represented in its salons. Henry Bacon, for instance, is American; and among the paintings and sketches that fill his studio, are many reminiscences of his far-off home. In no way, moreover, is he so genuinely American as in his devotion to pets. It is a pity that in many cases their beautiful portraits are all of themselves that remain to him. Most notable among them, and perhaps also best beloved, was Glen, a black-and-tan collie from Aberdeenshire, born in 1879, whose parents, Jock and Miss, had both obtained prize medals.
