Isidore Bonheur

Isidore Jules Bonheur
The artist circa 1870
Born	Isidore Jules Bonheur 15 May 1827 Bordeaux
Died	10 November 1901 Paris
Known for	Sculpture Painting
Movement	Animalier, Naturalism and Realism
Awards	Gold medal Exposition Universelle (1889)

Isidore Jules Bonheur (Bordeaux 15 May 1827 – 10 November 1901 Paris), best known as one of the 19th century's most distinguished French animalier sculptors. Bonheur began his career as an artist working with his elder sister Rosa Bonheur in the studio of their father, drawing instructor Raymond Bonheur. Initially working as a painter, Isidore Jules Bonheur made his Salon debut in 1848.

Born in Bordeaux, Jules was the third child of Christine Dorotheé Sophie Marquis (1797–1833), a musician, and Oscar-Raymond Bonheur (1796–1849) (a landscape and portrait painter and an early adherent of Saint-Simonianism, a Christian-socialist sect that promoted the education of women alongside men). Jules was the brother of Auguste Bonheur and Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899). "It is I who first gave modeling and sculpture lessons to my brother Isidore" (Rosa Bonheur)

In Bordeaux his father had been friends with Francisco Goya who was living there in exile. In 1828 Bonheur moved to Paris with his mother and brothers and sister, his father having gone ahead of them to establish a residence and income.

He studied painting at first, enrolling in 1849 at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, though he made his debut at the Salon (Paris) in 1848 (a Cavalier nègre attaqué par une lionne, plaster, and a drawing of the same subject) and exhibited regularly until 1899. He won medals in 1859, 1865, 1869, took part in the Exposition Universelle (1855), exhibited in London at the Royal Academy of Arts in the 1870s, where he gained great success with equine figures and groups, and won the coveted Médaille d'Or (gold medal) with a sculpture entitled Cavalier Louis XV at the Exposition Universelle (1889). He won a silver medal at l'Exposition [Historique?] de Madrid in 1892, a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale d'Anvers (1894).