Henriëtte Ronner-Knip Paintings

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip Paintings and Works for Sale

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Henriëtte Ronner-Knip Biography

Dutch artist
born 1821 - died 1909

Henriette Ronner-Knip is perhaps best known for her oil paintings of dogs and cats, but it was not until her later life that she specialised in these genres. Henriette Ronner-Knip came from a family of artists and received her earliest tuition from her father Joseph Augustus Knip (1777-1847). At the age of fifteen, she sold first Henriette Ronner-Knip work in an exhibition at Dusseldorf.

During her early years, Henriette Ronner-Knip painted many subjects including genre scene paintings, landscapes and still life paintings. In 1850, she married Telco Ronner and they moved to Brussels where she was to spend the rest of her life. In 1860, Henriette Ronner-Knip artist exhibited a painting entitled La mort d’un ami which was highly acclaimed, establishing her reputation as a painter of dogs. The Queen of Belgium commissioned Henriette Ronner-Knip to paint two of her favourite lap-dogs in 1876 and the success of these paintings led to many more commissions. Henriette Ronner-Knipcounted most of the crowned heads of Europe amongst her patrons. Among her most prestigious clients were the King of Hanover, Don Fernando King of Portugal, Emperor Wilhelm I King of Prussia, Baron Tindal of Amsterdam, the Duchess of Edinburgh and the Princess of Wales. Henriëtte Ronner-Knip began to paint cats in paintings that were popular for their humorous and anthropomorphic characterization. These domestic pets were often depicted in luxurious interiors, lying on silk cushions and chairs or playing in fancy baskets.

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip artist exhibited widely throughout her career and was elected to many artistic societies. The “Natura Artis Magistra” Society of Amsterdam elected her to membership in 1850 and Ronner-Knip was made a member of merit in the Academy of Painting and Drawing in Rotterdam in 1861. Henriëtte Ronner-Knip paintings won medals in exhibitions around the world, including two bronze medals, one vermeil medal, five silver medals and six gold medals. The King of The Netherlands also presented Ronner-Knip with a “Unique Medal of Merit” in 1874. Her international reputation was confirmed at the prestigious Worlds Fairs. First by an artistic medal at the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876, then by a gold medal at the Colonial and International Exposition held in Amsterdam in 1883 and a silver medal at the Universal Exhibition held in Edinburgh in 1883.

Ronner Knip was awarded the Cross of the Order of Léopold in 1887 by Léopold II King of the Belgians, an honour rarely bestowed upon a woman artist. In 1891, a Henriette Ronner-Knip Album was published with twelve reproductions of her most famous oil paintings. She died in Brussels in 1909.

The Henriette Ronner-Knip works are represented in several museums including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and the Dordrechts Museum.

During her life, she became widely recognized for Henriëtte Ronner-Knip paintings of dogs and cats, which she specialized in at a later stage of her artistic career. Her mastery at depicting the feline race was described by Marion H. Spielman, who was asked to write an English essay about the artist for the Magazine of Art in 1890, and which Henriette Ronner-Knip artist published in a book a year later.

She learnt quickly, and began to create Henriette Ronner-Knip art fast in order to sell them. By the time she was sixteen years old, she first exhibited her work at the annual art exhibition in Düsseldorf. Henriëtte Ronner-Knip cat picture at a window was sold, and henceforth, Henriëtte became a regular contributor to the exhibitions of Germany and Holland. She was a rapid producer, so by age eighteen, she was able to paint and sell a large number of popular subjects that included pastoral landscapes, castles, farms, genres scenes, still lifes and portraits. Despite that diverse production, she gradually began to focus more on animal scenes, which was her favorite subject. Instead of landscapes, she depicted more images of cows, sheep, horses, and birds. Henriëtte’s style at that time was characterized her precision and attention to detail, and use of dark colors, all which reflected the influence of the classicistic landscapes of her father (Kraaij, p. 1195)

Around 1845 dedicated Henriëtte Ronner-Knip paintings to animal scenes that depicted dogs, typically hunting dogs in forests and heath countryside. She began to receive critical praise at that time because of “accomplished Henriette Ronner-Knip art technique, balanced compositions and large formats.” (Kraaij, p. 1196) In the meantime, she met Teico Ronner whom she married in 1850, and since adopted the name of Henriëtte Ronner-Knip. That same year, they moved from Brabant to Brussels, Belgium, where she was to give birth to six children (two of them would become painters: Alfred Ronner 1852-1901, and Alice Ronner, 1857-1906), and to spend the rest of her life. Her first years of marriage were a struggle, as her husband was sickly, and she was once again responsible to provide the family income. Used to hard painting, Henriëtte Ronner-Knip artist woke up regularly at five in the morning, and painted diligently to earn her family’s livelihood.

Shortly after moving to Brussels, she concentrated on painting images with dogcarts, which was a common means of transportation by the less well-to-do farmers and peddlers during the nineteenth century. These Henriette Ronner-Knip works evoked a Romantic influence, which is best reflected in one of her more popular Henriette Ronner-Knip paintings, Death of a Friend (1860, Museum of Fine Art, Brussels). This Henriette Ronner-Knip work, which measures eight feet by six feet, depicts an old sand seller weeping over the death of one of his dogs, still harnessed to the cart. This Henriette Ronner-Knip art was highly acclaimed and as noted by E. Baes in 1887 “continued to be one of her most beautiful creations because maybe it reflects an era that is not so far away, yet absolutely different than the one we are obliged to live in.” (Baes, p. 187)

After exhibiting this Henriette Ronner-Knip painting in Brussels in 1860, she established her reputation as a dog painter, and subsequently received an increasing number of commissions from many distinguished patrons. Among them were the Kings of Hanover, Prussia, Portugal, and the Queen of Belgium as well as the Countess of Flanders who asked her to paint portraits of their dogs.

Despite her growing popularity, she continued to live modestly and eventually changed the subject matter of Henriëtte Ronner-Knip paintings, which had initially contributed to her fame. Around 1870, she shifted her attention from painting dogs to cats. That change occurred when a cat found her way into her home, and her curiosity was aroused. As Henriëtte Ronner-Knip cats became new models, she began to observe and study their attitudes, movements, and expressions, which she remarkably captured in her canvases. Spielman remarked that she is “one of the very few eminent animal painters of the day, and as a specialist one of the most admirable of all times,” and Henriette Ronner Knip praised Henriette Ronner-Knip art technique comparing it to Rosa Bonheur’s (1822-1899), saying that it is “virile, vigorous, decisive, unfailing in its truth, and admirable in its result.” (Spielman, pp. 34, 36)

Because cats were increasingly kept as house-pets, this subject became particularly popular among the art-buying urban middle class. Thus, Henriette Ronner-Knip continued to produce a variety of scenes of sleepy cats and playful kittens in her usual dark colors. . (Kraaij, p. 1196) In the 1880s and 1890s, Henriëtte Ronner-Knip paintings came to include some of the popular motifs influenced by Japanese and Chinese art. As she increased her production of Henriette Ronner-Knip art paintings, she also began making a water color or oil sketch for each painting in order to avoid repetition and detect forgeries. However, as modernism gained more prominence, her work began to be described as “uninspiring and conservative,” and these unfavorable remarks may have possibly led her to use a lighter palette, and move away from her carefully arranged compositions. (as noted by Kraaij, p. 1196) She died on March 2, 1909 in Brussels.

a rare honor for a woman to receive, and in 1909 she became Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, Netherlands.

the Henriette Ronner-Knip paintings can be seen at several museums including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Dordrechts Museum, Dordecht; and the Museum of Fine Art, Brussels.