Miss Winslow, in "Concerning Cats," says that "Mme. Ronner excels all other cat painters, living or dead. She not only infuses a wonderful degree of life into her little figures, but reproduces the shades of expression, shifting and variable as the sands of the sea, as no other artist of the brush has done. Asleep or awake, her cats look to the" felinarian "like cats with whom he or she is familiar. Curiosity, drowsiness, indifference, alertness, love, hate, anxiety, temper, innocence, cunning, fear, confidence, mischief, earnestness, dignity, helplessness—they are all in Mme. Ronner's cats' faces, just as we see them in our own cats."
It is but a short time ago that Mme. Ronner was still painting in Brussels, and had not only cats, but a splendid black dog and a cockatoo to bear her company, while her son is devoted to her. Her house is large and her grounds pleasant, and her fourscore years did not prevent her painting several hours a day, and, like some other ladies of whom we know, she was "eighty years young."
The editor of the Magazine of Art, M. H. Spielman, in an article on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1903, writes: "What the dog is to Mr. Riviere, to Madame Ronner is the cat. With what unerring truth she records delightful kittenly nature, the feline nobility of haughty indifference to human approval or discontent, the subtlety of expression, and drawing of heads and bodies, the exact quality and tone of the fur, the expressive eloquence of the tail! With all her eighty years, Madame Ronner's hand, vision, and sensibility have not diminished; only her sobriety of color seems to have increased." Her pictures of this year were called "The Ladybird" and "Coaxing." To the Exhibition of the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, 1903, Mme. Ronner sent pictures of cats, full of life and mischief.
Roosenboom, Margarite Vogel. Second-class medal, Munich, 1892. Born in 1843 and died in 1896, near The Hague. She spent a large part of her life near Utrecht, devoting herself mainly to the painting of flowers. One of her works is in the Royal Museum at Amsterdam, and another in the Museum at Breslau.
Rope, Ellen M. This English sculptor executed four large panels for the Women's Building at the Chicago Exhibition. They represented Faith, Hope, Charity, and Heavenly Wisdom. They are now in the Ladies' Dwelling, Cherries Street, London. A "Memorial" by her is in Salisbury Cathedral. Her reliefs of children are, however, her best works; that of a "Boy on a Dolphin" is most attractive. "Christ Blessing Little Children" is charmingly rendered.
At the Academy, 1903, she exhibited a panel for an organ chamber, in low relief.
Rosa, Aniella di. 1613-1649. A pupil in Naples of Stanzioni, who, by reason of her violent death, has been called the Neapolitan Sirani. She acquired a good reputation as a historical painter and doubtless had unusual talent, but as she worked in conjunction with Stanzioni and with her husband, Agostino Beltrano, it is difficult to speak of works entirely her own.
Two pictures that were acknowledged to be hers represented the birth and death of the Virgin; these were praised and were at one time in a church in Naples, but in a recent search for them I was unable to satisfy myself that the pictures I saw were genuine.
Another pupil in the studio of Stanzioni was the Beltrano whom Aniella married. He painted in fresco, Aniella in oils, and they were frequently employed together. The fine picture of San Biagio, in the church of Santa Maria della Sanità, was one of their joint works.