Hermine

Hermine — the French word for stoat or ermine — painted around 1900, belongs to the strand of small-mammal studies that ran alongside Rosa Bonheur's large-scale animal paintings throughout her career. The ermine (Mustela erminea in its white winter coat) was an animal of considerable symbolic weight in European visual culture: its white winter pelt was historically associated with royalty and judicial authority, while its small, alert form made it a favourite subject for delicate detail work. Bonheur had always been interested in animals beyond the large domesticated and wild mammals that brought her greatest fame, and her small-creature studies demonstrate the same disciplined observation she brought to bulls and horses. At eighty, she was still painting from the live animals she kept or observed at By. A painting of this subject required particular care with the animal's fine, close coat and the precise articulation of its sinuous body.

The ermine's small scale required a fine, controlled technique with particular attention to the animal's distinctive facial markings and the contrast between its white coat and black-tipped tail. Bonheur would have used fine brushes for the face and tail end, with broader handling for the body mass. The setting, whether rock or branch, provides colour and textural contrast.