Her success in painting cat action has been due
as much to her tireless patience as to her skill; a patience that gave
her strength to spend hours upon hours in carefully watching the quick
movements of the lithe little creatures, and in correcting again and
again her rapidly made sketches.
Every cat-lover knows that a cat cannot be induced, either by reason or
by affection, to act in accordance with any wishes save its own. Also
that cats find malicious amusement in doing what they know they are not
wanted to do, and that with an affectation of innocence that materially
aggravates their deliberate offence.
But Madame Ronner, through her long experience, has evolved a way to get
them to pose as models. Her plan is the simple one of keeping her models
prisoners in a glass box, enclosed in a wire cage, while she is painting
them. Inside the prison she cannot always command their actions, but her
knowledge of cat character enables her to a certain extent to persuade
them to take the pose which she requires. By placing a comfortable
cushion in the cage she can tempt her model to lie down; some object of
great interest, like a live mouse, for instance, exhibited just outside
the cage is sure to create the eager look that she has shown so well on
cat faces; and to induce her kittens to indulge in the leaps and bounds
which she has succeeded so wonderfully in transferring to canvas, she
keeps hanging from the top of the cage a most seductive "bob.
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