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BURIED TOGETHER

Partner Rosa Bonheur, buried together

Queer Places:
Père Lachaise Cemetery, 16 Rue du Repos, 75020 Paris, Francia

Rosa Bonheur, born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, (16 March 1822 – 25 May 1899) was a French animalière, realist artist, and sculptor. She lived for over forty years with her childhood friend Nathalie Micas (1824-1889), whom she met in 1836. In the final year of her life she became close with Anna Klumpke, the author of her "autobiography", and figured out a way around the Napoleonic Codes in order to leave Klumpke her estate.

Nathalie Micas was represented in the Hall of Science at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago by a railway brake she had patented.

Micas was the homemaker of the couple, and took care of business matters as well. Referring to Micas, Princess Stirby once commented, "Rosa Bonheur could never have remained the celebrated artist she was without someone beside her." After Micas's death, Bonheur took up with painter Anna Klumpke. Bonheur, Micas and Klumpke are buried together Pere Lachaise Cemetery in France, under a tombstone that reads: Friendship is divine affection.

Nathalie Micas & Rosa Bonheur are buried together at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Nathalie Micas's ashes were buried along with those of her mother in the tomb Rosa Bonheur had purchased. Bonheur, as she had planned, was interred there in 1899 and, at Anna Elizabeth Klumpke’s death in 1942, hers as well.



References:


Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community Hardcover – September 1, 2008
by Tracy Baim

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women (Intersections, 15) Paperback – January 28, 2011
by Leila J. Rupp

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