s The Lion at Home - Hull Museums Collections

The Lion at Home

This painting is typical of the realism favoured during the Victorian era. Rosa Bonheur, trained by her father, had already established her reputation with a vast painting, The Horse Fair, and was one of numerous women who developed successful careers portraying animals during the 19th century. Striving to be as accurate in detail as possible Bonheur visited slaughterhouses and cattle-markets, and kept many animals to sketch from. This painting was worked from close observation of a pair of Nubian lions and their cubs with which she shared her studio in Fontainebleau. Eccentric behaviour was characteristic of Bonheur, who attracted much comment in her day; going against the prevailing norms for women, she cropped her hair short, wore trousers (for which she needed a police permit) and smoked cigarettes. Exhibited first in London in 1882, The Lion at Home was an immediate success with both the public and the critics: With apparently inexhaustible artistic powers this greatest of French animal painters again comes to the front with a large and singularly fine picture she calls THE LION AT HOME. (The Queen, April 22 1882)