Rosa Bonheur was the most famous female artist of the 19th Century.

We are grateful to Annie-Paule Quinsac for confirming the authenticity of this painting. See below.

Rosa Bonheur: Three Bucks in the Fontainbleau Forest, erroneously Stags or Monarchs in the forest

Oil on canvas, 29 x 24 inches [74 x 61cm], signed and dated lower left, Rosa Bonheur 1886

The discovery of this painting, a reinterpretation of Bonheur’s most
iconic work Le roi de la Foret, [Monarch in the forest]is a significant
event in the artist’s scholarship. In forty years of study, I was not
aware of its existence and did not find any reproduction of it
throughout my extensive reading. Bought by the present owner at the
Stamford Winter Auction in 2008, it had been the property of a certain
Captain [ name illegible] until January 29, 1920, or from that date {?}.
The label on the back of the canvas reads: “Collection of Captain
J.H.Gaucis Jan.29,1920”. [the handwriting on the label is extremely
unusual; my deciphering of it induces me to propose this last name,
Latvian in origin] […]
This work could not have been offered among
the 95 paintings that compose the catalog section titled “Stags, Hinds,
Roebucks,” [ NN.320-415] in the catalog of the Rosa Bonheur Posthumous
Sale organized by the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, which included
over two thousand pieces kept in the studio and not sold during her life
time : it does not correspond to any of the description or measurements
given in these catalog entries. The number 5527inscribed in red on the
back of the canvas could refer to the painting having be handled by the
Knoedler Galerie, Paris and New York, which after Bonheur’s death, that
of Ernest Gambart (1814-1902and George Petit, (1856-1920) was
instrumental in the continued diffusion of her work in the US,
maintaining her prices that had crashed elsewhere in Europe.
Despite
difficulties in tracing the provenance history, the attribution to Rosa
Bonheur, cannot be denied. Stylistic and iconographic characters are
typical of her expressive means in the late 80’s. Also, it cannot be
questioned that the calligraphy of signature and date is hers.

The work depicts three male deers- or bucks- of different age, in a
trail, deep in the forest at twilight, just after sunset toward the end
of Fall. The two big ones, have stopped in their track, facing the
beholder frontally; the small one, in profile, seems ready to move in
another direction. The umbrella term deer, or the more specific one buck
{male deer} could both be used as title to this painting, rather than
stag, which implies an old majestic senior male deer, considered the
King of the forest also called Monarch. In the Cervidae family, the
number of points of a deer’s antler is one of the indicators of age,
along with body mass and overall size. In our painting, the most
prominent stag is massive and has a twelve points antler – qualifying as
Monarch. The one immediately behind him exhibits an eight points antler
and appears strong and imposing as well does not possess but not his
companion’s poise. It is a mature stag. The last one, slender, shoulders
not quite muscular yet, with barely six points to his antler, could not
be more than two years old. The intensity of expression of the two
older stags and their presence in the landscape which is rendered as
their stage, are characteristic of Bonheur’s rapport to animals and
nature.

The painting’s varnish has deteriorated and forms a film that will
need to be removed through a cautious cleaning. It is particularly
important that the transparent haze that evokes the humidity of the
forest at that crucial moment of the light be preserved. It contributes
to the painting vibrance.

Since 1860, when Rosa Bonheur moved to the Chateau of By, which she
had bought with her companion Nathalie Micas, the Fontainebleau Forest
which was at a stone through of her property, became ground of studies
and the Cervidae a common subject. By then, she would already sketch en
plein air, and months or years later, create paintings from start to
finish in the studio using the visual material collected while walking
through nature or observing animal in their milieu.

Her first image of the Great Monarch in the forest, represented
frontally and in a similar forest background is the 1868 painting Le
cerf de Saint Hubert [Hubertus’ Stag], an illustration of the legend of
Saint Hubertus in which she included a cross between the stag’s antlers.
As the story as it, Hubertus was a passionate hunter and would often
forget his religious duties to go hunting. On a certain Sunday in the
depth of a forest, where he had ventured alone, he began to pursue a
stag The animal faced him and while a cross appeared between his
antlers, the voice of God was heard, directing him to repent ad respect
all animals. Rosa Bonheur was herself a hunter but also a spiritualist,
influenced by the Saint Simonian creeds and by spiritism. She believed
that certain animals had a soul. I personally think that magnificent
monarchs and the St Hubertus’ legend had both a symbolical meaning for
her.

Ten years later, 1878, reusing the same setting, she produced one of
her most iconic paintings, Le roi de la foret,( The great Monarch).
While in the last thirty years of her life, she rarely sent pieces to
international exhibitions, trusting her dealers to represent her in all
venues, and having accumulated enough of a fortune to be totally
independent from the fluctuations of the art market, she exhibited that
work at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, indicating
by this choice that she considered it one of her major life’s
accomplishments. Ernest Gambart, the most sensitive of her dealers,
chose the painting for one of the three bronze plaques to be inserted in
the base of the monument which he donated to the town of Fontainebleau
to be erected in her memory (1904). In this work too, a celestial light
seems to be coming from the left of the composition. Very recently the
painting was exhibited in occasion of the Retrospective Rosa Bonheur at
the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and illustrates the catalog cover.

The work in exam is directly related to its illustrious predecessor.
Also realized ten years after The great Monarch, in 1886, it is roughly a
third smaller in height and twice and a half narrower in width. It
repeats the same lighting at dusk and the rendition of the landscape
underlines the humidity of an evening in the forest, toward the end of
Fall. The great Monarch has an equally inquisitive look than in the 1876
painting, but the two other figures transform the work in a study in
stags, as if to illustrate various stages of their development. The
harmony between the animal and their habitat is even more striking here.
A sense of a nature not fully comprehensible to man emerges. I am
convinced that all three works, each distant of ten years from each
other, are intimately connected in the message Bonheur wanted to
communicate to her collectors and humanity at large, faced by a
progressively more industrialized world. Furthermore, Three bucks in the
Fontainebleau is not inferior in emotional intensity or less suggestive
of an atmosphere than the previous one. It is baffling to me that it
could have remained unknown for so long. It can probably be explained by
its belonging to the same collection for a long time, throughout the
decades in which Bonheur was snubbed by the critics worldwide.

Dr. Annie-Paule Quinsac
New York, June 20,2023