It might be a cliché to say so, but Rosa Bonheur was undeniably ahead of her time.

Bonheur followed her own path, marched to the beat of a different drummer, etc. She was France’s most well-known, (and wealthiest) female artist of the 19^th century, who also happened to be one of the greatest painters of animals throughout art history. People have been painting animals for around 45,000 years now, from Aboriginal cave paintings in Australia to Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species, so, it’s not a surprise that they make for a popular subject.

Bonheur was known for her then unconventional lifestyle and fashion choices; it was simply unheard of for a woman to dress in men’s clothing (her explanation was that pants were more practical for painting animals in the outdoors), but Rosa was too busy painting and living her best life to care about what others thought of her. By the time she painted Gathering for the Hunt, she had been painting animals for a number of years. She was a young girl when she first used animals, usually farm animals, as subjects. Apparently, her mother taught her the alphabet by having Rosa draw an animal next to each letter she was learning.

Even with all of her works that feature animals, Gathering for the Hunt was her first to focus on hunting, and, as is common with her work, the animals get more of her attention than the people in the scene. You can see much more personality and detail in the dogs and horses than you can in the hunters! She was actually criticized for this by none other than art critic John Ruskin, whose job, obviously, was to critique things. There are not that many other examples of hunting paintings by Bonheur: Huntsmen Taking Hounds to Cover, The Halt of the Hunt, The Departure for the Hunt, Relay Hunting, and Ready for the Hunt are some that are known.

There is a Bonheur painting of a hound dog, A Limier Briquet Hound, at the Met that might have been used as a study in preparation for Gathering for the Hunt. The dog (belonging to the Viscount of Armaille) is certainly similar to the hounds in Gathering. Some of these hounds look a bit overzealous, as they have zeroed in on one man’s fur jacket, thinking it’s their target, while their handler tries to control them.

Dogs weren’t the only animal subject Bonheur painted; she was equally adept at depicting oxen, cows, lions, rabbits, sheep, deer, and wild boar. Rosa REALLY liked animals; she even had a pet lioness named Fathma, who wandered freely around the house. All of the other animals she kept on her property, including birds, monkeys, sheep, horses, and dogs probably appreciated that the lion was an indoor cat. Bonheur continued to paint animals right up to her death in 1899; she left an unfinished painting of horses in full gallop in her studio.