Dutch painter and draughtsman, part of a family of artists, son of Nicolaas Frederik Knip. He is the best-known representative of the family. He started out as a wallpaper painter in the workshop of his father and left for Paris in 1801, where he produced mostly landscapes in gouache. In 1808 he married the French porcelain painter Pauline Rifer de Courcelles (1781-1851); the marriage was soon dissolved. Also in 1808 Knip won the Dutch Prix de Rome and spent time in Rome from 1809 on. There he produced over 500 works, primarily wash drawings of monuments and landscapes in and around Rome. These sheets, on which Knip's reputation rests, are drawn in a severe Neo-classical style with muted colour. They constituted a portfolio, on which he drew for the rest of his life: he combined unconnected motifs recorded in his portfolio, more or less arbitrarily, to compose his later paintings and large gouaches, for example Landscape near Ischia (1818; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) and View of La Cava (1817; Heino, Hannema-de Stuers Fundatie). Knip returned to the Netherlands in 1813, where he stayed for eight years. In 1823 he went to Paris, accompanied by his wife and children, August and Henriette. In 1827 he returned once again to the Netherlands, having lost sight in one eye; he became completely blind in 1832. His children, whom he taught, are said to have completed some of his work. //