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Her father, aware of Rosa’s talent, tries to direct her towards another destiny in order to guarantee her a certain economic serenity.
But Rosa, stubborn, goes every day to the Louvre to study and copy the animals painted by the great artists, so her father becomes her master and encourages her to participate, in 1841, in her first Salon with the painting, «Two Rabbits «, which will be rewarded.
Captivated by the animal world, she devotes her whole life to its representation and with meticulousness she studies the anatomy of animals. The living world is at the center of her immense work, vitality, strength and soul of animals, wild or domes- tic, she manages to capture their sensitivity and becomes one of the precursors of animal ethics.
During her long career, she painted several landscapes of Auvergne, Nivernais, the Pyrenees and Scotland, but it was in Seine et Marne that she found her refuge.
Universally acclaimed, linked to art dealers, but keeping her financial independence, she bought the Château de By, in Thomery, in the Forest of Fontainebleau. This place will be her Noah’s Ark, an ideal stopover far from societal life. She created a menagerie and a zoo there to house her models who would adorn her monumental works.
If she remained the painter of domestic animals, dogs, rabbits, cows, her lions and deer remain unforgettable.
Nathalie Micas, her companion for more than 40 years, will always be by her side to help her in her work as an artist and support her in her fight to have animal painting recognized at the same level as historical painting. When Nathalie dies, Rosa has a strong depression that she manages to overcome thanks to the arrival of the Wild West Show in Europe.
Buffalo Bill and his animals give her the strength to pursue her artistic path and teach «her brush sister», the young American artist Anna Klumpke, all her knowledge. All is not lost, she will be hes pupil, friend and universal heiress.
Anna preserves the castle, with its paintings, its objects, its archives, she sells works for the family excluded from the estate, writes a rich biography and fights, without really succeeding, to perpetuate the name and the notoriety of her protector.