Two Kittens with an Inkstand by Henriette Ronner, Photogravure, circa 1894

About this sheet

An original antique photogravure of two kittens after the painting by Henriette Ronner-Knip, the artist who made the cat her life's subject and the best known painter of cats in nineteenth century Europe. A long haired kitten sits up against a dark inkstand while a second crouches beside a shallow saucer, both drawn with the soft tonal range that photogravure gives and that suited Ronner's handling of fur better than any line process could. The artist's signature, Henriette Ronner, is printed in the plate at the lower left, and the credit line beneath the image reads Photogravure Goupil et Cie.

Henriette Ronner-Knip was born in Amsterdam in 1821 into a family of painters, settled in Brussels, and from the 1870s painted almost nothing but cats and kittens, working from animals kept in a glazed studio built for the purpose. Goupil et Cie of Paris, the most important print publisher in Europe at the time and the firm that employed the young Vincent van Gogh, issued her compositions as photogravures, a process that uses a photographic image etched into a copper plate and prints with genuine intaglio ink.

Ronner's cats have never gone out of fashion and the photogravures are the most affordable way to own her work. The image is small, tonal and quiet, and it belongs in a sitting room, a bedroom or a hallway rather than on a grand wall. It also makes an obvious gift for anybody who keeps cats, which is a wider market than most antique prints can reach.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the left, right and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.