In 1847, Rosa Bonheur took her first prize, a gold medal of the third class. She had to claim this in person. To cultivate her independence her father sent her by herself to get her medal. When the Director of the Fine Arts presented it in the king's name, she said very simply, "Thank the king very much for me, and deign to add that I intend to do better next time." Three years later she took the first prize, so we see she kept her word with the king. These honors were welcomed by all her friends but most of all by her rapidly ageing father, who now saw distinctly in her the fulfillment of his hopes. Famous men like Vernet and Delaroche praised her and sought her acquaintance.

At this time she again met Natalie Micas and from this date they were intimate friends and companions. Natalie attended to all sorts of details for the artist and perhaps made up for some of the lack of training in the artist's early years, a time when she missed what every young girl needs so much, a mother's watchful guidance. The father was the very pattern of disorder, if such a model were needed in the world. The studio was a clutter of all sorts of things. Into this confused mass he frequently flung the small coins paid him, so that when the household purse ran low there was still sure to be money in the house, even though it were little indeed. Natalie lived with Rosa Bonheur until her death in 1889. Her loss was a great blow to the artist, who confessed that never a day went by that she did not think lovingly of her dear friend.

In the early happy years when the young family had gathered about the evening lamp to read, two writers had impressed deeply one member of the circle at least and that was our artist. The stories of George Sand and Walter Scott were life itself almost to her and many passages in them she unconsciously illustrated in the course of her art life.

A country scene from the introductory chapter of one of George Sand's stories furnished the subject of one of her very strongest works, "Oxen Ploughing."  For years the novelist's picture had lived in her mind and now a trip to Nevers, or Nivernais, gave reality to her long ago received impression and the painting was worked out. It is another poem of the fields wrought with the subtle touch of one who knew and loved life and nature. In it she sang the old song of labor with the same spirit that Millet sounded in his "Gleaners"  and Breton in his "Song of the Lark."  Two teams of six oxen each draw the deep bread-producing furrow, while strong hands steady the plows. The rising ground just ahead tells that added strength will be needed on the up-hill. In the distance, on the opposite side among leafy trees, nestles the cottage that shelters the wife and children of the laborer.

This picture was painted for the Salon exhibit of 1849 and completed in that year. The work had to be done away from home, as the house in which they then lived had no suitable studio. The last years had been easier for the father, who had been appointed director of drawing in a young ladies' school. His health, however, began to fail and while his daughter was engaged on this masterpiece he became so delicate that he could not go out. We can imagine his interest in the work and how he questioned her regarding its progress from day to day. When it was finished, he rallied sufficiently to be able to go and see it. He examined closely its every detail and seemed satisfied. It seemed now as though life could yield him no additional boon. He returned home serene—crowned as it were with peace. He went out no more and in a few days he said good-bye to a world that for the most of his life he had buffeted unsuccessfully.

On her father's death, Rosa was appointed to his place in the school. Here she gave instruction until her removal to By.

The great success of "Oxen Ploughing"  created in our artist an ambition to do something still better. With this thought in her mind she conceived the matchless horse picture so well known the world over as "The Horse Fair."  It was a giant work which she undertook and no one could realize it more thoroughly than Rosa Bonheur. Her friends in Paris put their finest horses at her disposal to use as models but this was not enough. She must be where she could study the animals continually and so she visited the horse markets and sketched all sorts of fine horses in all sorts of positions. Her woman's attire was a hindrance to her, often subjecting her to coarse jokes and always attracting to her unwelcome attention. To avoid these things she adopted the costume of a man, which became her well and saved her many annoyances. For a year and a half this laborious preparatory work continued and then she felt ready to make her picture.

Her horses were to be two-thirds life size. This of course required an immense canvas, the largest ever used by any animal painter up to that time. She was obliged almost constantly to make use of a ladder in reaching the various parts, and so she continued to wear male attire. As she worked at the great expanse of canvas she used laughingly to call it her "Parthenon Frieze." She little realized how her work in the end would justify the lofty title she gave it, for in it was all the variety and majesty of action, all the truth to life of its wonderful namesake. Like this namesake, too, it was the chief work of a powerful master.

At last the gigantic work was completed, ready for the Salon of 1853. It was the subject par excellence  of all art discussion. While there were those who claimed that its size was against it, the majority agreed in admiring it beyond all modern pictures. On account of the great work, the artist was given the privilege of henceforth exhibiting in the Salon without examination, from the Jury of Admission,—a rare honor even to a great artist.

Shortly after it was shown in the Salon, she loaned it to an exhibition in Ghent, where it brought forth only words of praise. Indeed so delighted were the Belgians with the artist's generosity in loaning the picture for their enjoyment that they sent her an exquisite cameo reproduction of the picture in miniature.

Napoleon III. had admired the work very much. The Director of Fine Arts, wishing to please the king, applied to the artist to buy it. He was unable to offer what she considered the picture worth and so the purchase was not effected.

The exhibition in Ghent had closed and the canvas was about to be sent home, when quite unexpectedly Mr. Gambart, a picture dealer, offered her 40,000 francs for it. She accepted the proposition and the picture was put on exhibition first in England and then in America. It was finally bought by a wealthy man in New York for 300,000 francs and it now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum. Both the artist and the picture dealer were enriched in gold. What shall we say for the thousands who gazed upon its splendid workmanship and of our own dear land that thus gained a real art treasure? Only this be our boast, that instead of money we gained in the immortal part—in ideas and in possessing a grand expression of Rosa Bonheur's better self.

For Mr. Gambart she painted a smaller replica of the picture, which to-day hangs in the National Gallery in London. During the next four years Rosa Bonheur made two notable trips, the one to the Pyrenees and the other to England and Scotland. She had long wished to visit the romantic and rugged scenery of the mountains dividing Spain and France. It was as delightful as she had anticipated and she pushed on over the Spanish border where her friends feared for her in her venturesomeness lest she be attacked by free-booters that were known to infest these remote regions. She returned, however, from her sketching tours unmindful of the dangers she had braved and conscious only of a great number of beautiful pictures of the rugged scenery which she carried in her artist's mind. Her "Crossing the Pyrenees"  recalls this part of her life.