Mother cat with four kittens

Brabant's famous Knip family of painters produced eight artists over three generations. All eight developed their own specialism. Henriëtte Ronner-Knip had a particular talent for animals. Or rather: pets. Cats, to be precise.

In a cat-egory of her own

In those days, pets - and cats in particular - were hugely popular, especially in England. The cat was a feature of the interiors of the wealthy bourgeoisie and nobility, both in real life and on canvas. And that trend made its way to the Netherlands. With her talent, Ronner-Knip was able to take full advantage of the cat craze, and her work became world-famous. In fact, the artist was partly responsible for cat paintings becoming a specific genre in painting - a pioneering role played by very few female artists before her.

Cat in a cabinet

How do you paint a cat? In Ronner-Knip's garden in Brussels, there was a 'foyer des artistes': a sort of shack housing the cats she had borrowed to paint. If she wanted to paint an animal, she got hold of one and put it in a glass case, so she could study it at leisure without the animal scarpering.