Few stories from real life are so interesting and romantic as this, yet little notice has been taken of Onorata's talent or of her prowess, while many less spirited and unusual lives have been commemorated in prose and poetry.
Rodriguez de Toro, Luisa. Honorable mention, Madrid, 1856, for a picture of "Queen Isabel the Catholic Reading with Doña Beatriz de Galindo"; honorable mention, 1860, for her "Boabdil Returning from Prison."
Born in Madrid; a descendant of the Counts of Los Villares, and wife of the Count of Mirasol. Pupil of Cárlos Ribera.
Ronner, Mme. Henriette. Medals and honorable mentions and elections to academies have been showered on Mme. Ronner all over Europe. The King of Belgium decorated her with the Cross of the Order of Leopold. Born in Amsterdam in 1821. The grandfather of this artist was Nicolas Frederick Knip, a flower painter; her father, Josephus Augustus Knip, a landscape painter, went blind, and after this misfortune was the teacher of his daughter; her aunt, for whom she was named, received medals in Paris and Amsterdam for her flower pictures. What could Henriette Knip do except paint pictures? Hers was a clear case of predestination!
At all events, almost from babyhood she occupied herself with her pencil, and when she was twelve years old her blind father began to teach her. Even at six years of age it was plainly seen that she would be a painter of animals. When sixteen she exhibited a "Cat in a Window," and from that time was considered a reputable artist.
In 1850 she was married and settled in Brussels. From this time for fifteen years she painted dogs almost without exception. Her picture called "Friend of Man" was exhibited in 1850. It is her most famous work and represents an old sand-seller, whose dog, still harnessed to the little sand-wagon, is dying, while two other dogs are looking on with well-defined sympathy. It is a most pathetic scene, wonderfully rendered.
About 1870 she devoted herself to pictures of cats, in which specialty of art she has been most important. In 1876, however, she sent to the Philadelphia Exposition a picture of "Setter Dogs." "A Cart Drawn by Dogs" is in the Museum at Hanover; "Dog and Pigeon," in the Stettin Museum; "Coming from Market" is in a private collection in San Francisco.
Mme. Ronner has invented a method of posing cats that is ingenious and of great advantage. To the uninitiated it would seem that one could only take the portrait of a sleeping cat, so untiring are the little beasts in their gymnastic performances. But Mme. Ronner, having studied them with infinite patience, proceeded to arrange a glass box, in which, on a comfortable cushion, she persuades her cats to assume the positions she desires. This box is enclosed in a wire cage, and from the top of this she hangs some cat attraction, upon which the creature bounds and shows those wonderful antics that the artist has so marvellously reproduced in her painting. Mme. Ronner has two favorite models, "Jem" and "Monmouth." The last name is classical, since the cat of Mother Michel has been made immortal.