An excerpt from my novel-in-progress: Rosa & Nathalie, a work of historical fiction based on a decade in the life of French painter Rosa Bonheur, the most financially and critically successful female painter of the nineteenth century. If you’re an interested agent, reach out!
Monsieur Lacépede knocked lightly so as not to disturb the meeting, pushed the door open with his shoulder, set down a silver tray with Sèvres porcelain – two cups of coffee and a plate with four madeleines – on the table between them, and discreetly departed.
“So, Mademoiselle Bonheur. tell me about your proposal. As stated in my letter from July, it should depict animals in a pasture – a subject similar to your prize-winning Oxen at Cantel,” referring to the painting that won Rosa a gold medal at the 1848 Salon exhibition held annually at the Louvre and that recently had closed. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thank you, Monsieur le Ministre. The award was a wonderful and unexpected surprise and a great encouragement. My aspiration now, however, is more ambitious than it was a few years ago. I want to make a new, more democratic kind of history painting: patriotic paintings that celebrate the people, the farmers who feed the nation, in contrast to more conventional type of history paintings such as Baron Gros’s Napoleonic battle scenes or Delacroix’s depictions of military campaigns that he recently painted in the Palais de Luxembourg.”
Rosa’s voice intensified with evident passion. “To me, farmers are the unsung heroes of France, especially now, after our most recent republican revolution. Although they are usually portrayed as happy and healthy, living in symbiotic harmony with nature—the way rich city people like to envision them and as the great Léopold Robert paints them. Their lives, as you know, are actually hard and unpredictable, determined by the vicissitudes of climate, wind, weather, and supply chains. For centuries, they have fed the nation and received little recognition or reward for their labors. It is about time we showed them the appreciation they deserve.” She thought about her hard-working vintner uncle and his family near Bordeaux.
“I agree completely, Mademoiselle Bonheur. France needs farmers as much as it needs soldiers – they are essential to our survival.” The Duke was undoubtedly aware that as a result of widespread famines in the 1840s many small-scale farmers were so malnourished that they failed the physical exam for entering the military. “Let’s see how you plan to honor them.”
Rosa opened her large black portfolio and handed the Minister a detailed pencil sketch showing two teams of oxen guided by farmers. He accepted it, examining it carefully.
“What will it be called?” Morny wondered.
“Plowing in the Nivernais,” Rosa replied. “I want a neutral, descriptive title, so that viewers are oriented geographically, but not directed ideologically. I want to make the kind of patriotic image that unites, rather than divides people according to their social status and political convictions.”
“A wise strategy in these tumultuous times,” Morny acknowledged approvingly. France was still reeling after the revolution of the previous February that removed once and for all kings (and members of the royal Bourbon dynasty) as rulers and installed a kind of compromise figure—Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew Charles-Louis, called Napoleon III—soon to become president in the upcoming December election.
Aware of the inherent sense of superiority innate to the nobility and their collective regret about the outcome of the 1789 uprisings, Rosa felt reticent about what she was about to say next. Rosa explained: “I grew up in a very non-hierarchical family, Monsieur le Ministre, one that honored the democratic republican values of the Revolution of 1789. My parents taught us that everyone should contribute to society according to their capabilities and that there are no rational biological impediments to women contributing in areas traditionally monopolized by men. My mother was an impassioned admirer of Olympe de Gouges, and every year on the anniversary of her execution, November 3rd, she bought a bouquet of flowers and took us along to lay them in front of the building where she had lived on the rue Servandoni. Recounting for us the tragic story of de Gouges became part of the ritual, and as a girl I sympathized with that brave activist, who unpretentiously, but for the time provocatively, asserted that the Declaration of the Rights of Man should also apply to women. Mother warned us about insecure men like Robespierre, who manipulated de Gouges’s treason trial based on falsified charges that resulted in her being condemned to death. And for merely substituting the gender designation ‘women’ for ‘men’ on a document! If only the trial had been delayed until after Robespierre’s own execution for treason a few months later, well, the situation for women might have turned out differently.”
“Indeed,” responded the Duke politely, with measured enthusiasm, as he washed down his last bit of madeleine with a sip of coffee.
