Onorata completed her work, but her new vocation held her with a potent spell, and henceforth she led a divided life—­never entirely relinquishing her brush, and remaining always a soldier.

When Castelleone was besieged by the Venetians, Onorata led her band thither and was victorious in the defence of her birthplace.  She was fatally wounded in this action and died soon after, in the midst of the men and women whose homes she had saved.  They loved her for her bravery and deeply mourned the sacrifice of her life.

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 Dona 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 Carlos 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.