Ploughing in the Nivernais
Ploughing in the Nivernais, also known as Oxen ploughing in Nevers or Plowing in Nivernais, is an 1849 painting by French artist Rosa Bonheur. It depicts two teams of oxen ploughing the land, and expresses deep commitment to the land; it may have been inspired by the opening scene of George Sand's 1846 novel La Mare au Diable. Commissioned by the government and winner of a First Medal at the Salon in 1849, today it is held in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Ploughing in the Nivernais
Ploughing in the Nivernais
Charolais bull
Constant Troyon, Boeufs allant au labour, effet de matin ("Oxen going to work, effect of morning"), 1855, Musée d'Orsay.
Rosa Bonheur was a French artist known best as a painter of animals (animalière). She also made sculptures in a realist style. Her paintings include Ploughing in the Nivernais, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1848, and now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and The Horse Fair, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Bonheur was widely considered to be the most famous female painter of the nineteenth century.
Rosa Bonheur, c. 1895–99
The Horse Fair (1852–55; Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Ploughing in the Nivernais, Musée d'Orsay
Edouard Louis Dubufe, Portrait of Rosa Bonheur 1857. Symbolic of her work as an Animalière, the bull was painted by Bonheur herself.