Boy in a Dog Cart

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip was a celebrated Dutch-Belgian artist, best known for her enchanting animal paintings—especially her iconic portrayals of cats. Working in the Romantic tradition, she brought warmth, personality, and narrative charm to her compositions, which continue to captivate audiences around the world.

Born into a distinguished family of artists in Amsterdam on May 31, 1821, Henriëtte received her first artistic training from her father, Josephus Augustus Knip, a respected landscape painter. Despite his declining eyesight, he rigorously mentored her from a young age. Creativity ran deep in the family: her grandfather Nicolaas Knip and aunt Henriëtte Geertruida Knip were also painters. Some sources suggest that her mother may have been Pauline Rifer de Courcelles, a bird painter, though this remains uncertain due to complex family circumstances.

Henriëtte began exhibiting her work publicly by 1838 and took on increasing responsibility for her family as her father became fully blind. After the death of her stepmother, she moved to Amsterdam and began painting rural landscapes and animals from life, first in watercolour and later in oil. In 1848, she became the first woman to be admitted as an active member of the prestigious artists’ society Arti et Amicitiae.

In 1850, she married Feico Ronner and settled in Brussels. As her husband’s health prevented him from working consistently, he became her manager. Henriëtte began to focus more narrowly on the depiction of animals, particularly dogs and, eventually, cats. Her breakthrough came in the 1870s with her now-famous paintings of long-haired, often playful cats in richly detailed bourgeois interiors. These works—delicate, expressive, and filled with narrative nuance—became her signature and earned her international acclaim.

Ronner-Knip’s talent also attracted the attention of royalty. She received commissions from Queen Marie Henriette of Austria and Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and was admired by patrons such as the King of Portugal and Kaiser Wilhelm I. She exhibited widely, including at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

In her later years, Henriëtte created elaborate studio setups to study her animal subjects in detail. She kept cats, dogs, and even a parrot, building paper maquettes to stage scenes with furniture and fabrics. She occasionally collaborated with genre painters like David Col, and her children Alfred, Alice, and Emma Ronner followed in her artistic footsteps.

Honoured with the Order of Leopold (1887) and the Order of Orange-Nassau (1901), Ronner-Knip left a rich legacy. Her works are housed in major institutions such as the Rijksmuseum and Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Museum of Ixelles in Brussels, and the Royal Collection in London.

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip passed away on February 28, 1909, in Ixelles, Belgium. Today, she is remembered not only as the preeminent painter of cats but also as a pioneering woman in the 19th-century art world. Her name lives on in museum collections—and in the street names of Amsterdam and Leiden, where she is commemorated with affection and admiration.