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Oregon, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

the parson's cat


Henriette Ronner-Knip (1821-1909) was a Dutch artist of genre and landscape scenes that later in her career made a specialty of cat and dog paintings. Later yet, around 1870, she focused more intently on cats. Throughout her career she won awards and made a decent living, which was fortunate as her husband was not able to do so himself and she had six children to support.
This is "The Parson's Cat" (probably late 18oo's - no date found at present). This is less genre-laden than other similar works: it's just a nice little cat on a cushion, bright eyed, expertly handled. Note the clarity of the shining eyes against the soft fur texture. For more typical work see this page; and here's a proper biography page on Henriette Ronner-Knip.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That made me smile. Just a simple, well-done portrait of a beautiful creature. When the subject is a cat, there isn't any need for more.

curator said...

That's how I felt, too.