Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (Amsterdam 1821–Ixelles 1909) was a Dutch-Belgian artist in the Romantic style who is best known for her animal paintings; especially cats.
She was born into a family of artists and she received her first lessons from her father, Josephus Augustus Knip. His father, Nicolaas (1741-1808), was an artist as well. Some sources indicate that her mother was Pauline Rifer de Courcelles, a painter of birds, who was her father's first wife but, at the time of her birth, they were apparently separated and he was living with his mistress, Cornelia van Leeuwen (1790-1848), who is also credited with being Henriëtte's mother.
The family moved often as her father found work giving lessons. In 1840 the family settled in Berlicum . By this time, she was essentially in charge of the family's finances and legal obligations, and had begun painting seriously by 1835. She was a participant in the Exhibition of Living Masters in 1838.
After Cornelia's death, she moved to Amsterdam where she painted farms, animals and forests from nature; first in watercolor, then in oils. That same year, she became the first woman admitted as an "active member" to Arti et Amicitiae. In 1850, she married Feico Ronner (1819-1883) and they moved to Brussels. He was often ill and could not be regularly employed, so he became her manager. At this time, she narrowed her subject matter, focusing almost entirely on dogs and cats. After 1870, she painted her most famous works, featuring long-haired, often playful cats in bourgeois settings. She continued to paint dogs too; notably lapdogs belonging to Marie Henriette of Austria and Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
In her later years, she had a house with a large garden, where she kept hunting dogs, cats and a parrot that she used as models. After observing them in her studio, she would make paper sculptures in the desired poses and set them together with props, such as furniture and fabrics. She occasionally collaborated with the genre artist, David Col.
In 1887, she was awarded the Order of Leopold and, in 1901, became a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau.