The School of Philosophy and Art History hold the Essex Lectures in Art History each year. The June 2022 lectures are titled 'Myth and Menagerie: Seeing Lions in Nineteenth Century France'
Lecture III: Leonine Intimacies: Rosa Bonheur and Circus Lions
After a long and illustrious career representing horses and other domesticated animals native to Europe, in the late 1870s Rosa Bonheur turned to lions as subjects for her paintings. Bonheur’s ability to come into close contact with lions, and even acquire several for her personal menagerie, emerged out of her close friendship with the period’s most important circus impresario, François Bidel. In this talk, I examine the relationship between the body of wild lion imagery that Bonheur produced in relation to the cosmopolitan spectacle of the circus and the labor and charisma of its animals.
Each lecture is one hour, followed by a 45-minute Q&A session.
If you would like to join this lecture, either in person or via Zoom, please email spahpg@essex.ac.uk to register.