Conformation and the Parade Ring · The Conformation
The Horse Fair
Rosa Bonheur, oil on canvas, 1852-1855 · oil on canvas
What it is
A column of Percheron and Boulonnais dealers' horses surges past the crowd at the Paris market, rearing and jostling under the handlers' grip.
Why it matters
Bonheur dressed as a man, police permit in her pocket, to sketch at the market and the slaughterhouses without being run off; the finished canvas toured Europe and America under a dealer's promotion and made her the most celebrated woman painter of her age.
What to notice
Watch the dealer at dead centre, hauling back on a grey rearing clean off its forefeet — the whole picture's motion is caught in that one wrist.
Muscle painted this large refuses to stay background.
Provenance
- Maker
- Rosa Bonheur, oil on canvas, 1852-1855
- Era
- The Victorian Turf (1837–1901)
- Chapter
- The Yard Wakes
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Made
- 1855
- Source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art (DT44)
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 1.57× from the surviving 3811×1962 scan by AI enhancement (Claid smart-enhance), prepared for the considered detail of a print viewed at distance. The source record above is unchanged — the enhancement serves the wall, not the archive.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-20.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Whistlejacket
Race Horses Before the Stands
Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath
Mr E. J. Irwin's Foig-a-Ballagh, Winner of the 1844 St Leger
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.