Rosa Bonheur was a French artist working in the animalier style. Creating both sculptures and paintings, Bonheur is best known for her realist depictions of animals and is widely lauded as one of the most famous female painters of the 19th century. Born on March 16, 1822 in Bordeaux, France into a family of artists, her mother taught her to read by asking Bonheur to sketch a different creature for each letter of the alphabet—fostering an early love of drawing animals that would fuel her later work. Bonheur’s paintings, consisting of adept depictions of endemic and exotic animals, would garner considerable critical and commercial success throughout her lifetime. This granted her freedoms not usually available to female artists at the time, such as her inclusion in prominent exhibitions like the Paris Salon of 1848. After her death on May 25, 1899, she has been discussed as an important figure in art history, especially for her role as a female painter, and her works are held in the collections of important institutions around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.