Studies of a horse and a horse's head (recto); Sketch of a galloping horse with a rider (verso)

This drawing by the renowned animal painter Rosa Bonheur depicts a Percheron horse at rest. The Percheron horse is a working-horse breed from the Le Perche province of France known for its calm temperament and heavy build, making it ideal for plowing and carriage-pulling. Bonheur famously showed the magnificent power of these horses in her best known painting, The Horse Fair, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 87.25; see L. Rebsamen, in Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899), exhib. cat., Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2022, pp. 148-150). In the drawing we get a glimpse of the working horse at rest.