Four CDV portraits of Rosa Bonheur, the celebrated French animal painter, comprise this lot, produced by two of Paris's foremost photographic studios: Disdéri & Co. and E. Neurdein, with a fourth card bearing no photographer's imprint. The Disdéri full-length portrait presents Bonheur standing beside an ornate carved chair, dressed in a voluminous dark satin skirt and fitted velvet jacket with a white collar, a sculptor's mallet and tools arranged on the studio floor at her feet — props suggesting artistic identity rather than her primary medium. The companion Disdéri card is a group portrait, its front mount inscribed "Rosa Bonheur & family," showing Bonheur seated in the same dark satin skirt among three other figures including an older bearded man and a younger woman, all arranged in a relaxed studio grouping.

The Neurdein bust portrait is among the most symbolically loaded of the four, presenting Bonheur in a dark velvet jacket with a white collar, holding a paint-stained palette and multiple brushes before her, the cross of the Légion d'honneur prominently displayed at her chest. The fourth card, with no studio imprint, shows Bonheur in a three-quarter pose wearing the same style of satin jacket and Légion d'honneur decoration, her name printed directly on the front mount in script lettering. Across all four images her hair is worn short and loose to the jaw, a consistent and deliberate aspect of her public presentation.

Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) was the most celebrated female artist of the nineteenth century, renowned internationally for monumental animal paintings including The Horse Fair (1855), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Ploughing in the Nivernais (1849). She was the first woman to receive the Légion d'honneur, awarded by Empress Eugénie in 1865, and later promoted to Officer of the Legion by the French government. Bonheur famously obtained a police permit to wear trousers while working, and her unconventional dress and lifestyle made her a subject of considerable public fascination alongside her artistic achievements.

Reverses bear penciled inscriptions reading "Rosa Bonheur" on three cards, with the Disdéri full-length additionally inscribed "Distinguished French painter of animal + still life" in a collector's hand. Studio imprints identify Disdéri as Photographe de S.M. l'Empereur and Neurdein at 28 Boulevard de Sébastopol with the designation Portraits, Vues, Reproductions. Dealer codes read "BARFEZ 11/03," "9/26/15 / LEDFB1," "7/11/07 / COLAEX," and "3/7/06 / COLAD1 / Eb."