The family originated in Brabant and included three generations of painters and draftsmen active from c. 1770 to c. 1900. The founder of the dynasty was Nicolaas Frederik Knip (1741-1808), who worked in the 18th-century tradition of wallpaper painters. His children included Josephus Augustus Knip (1777-1847), whose landscape drawings are distinguished examples of Dutch Neoclassicism; Henriette Geertruida Knip (1783-1842), a fine still-life painter working in watercolour and gouache; and Mattheus Derk Knip (1785-1845), who made landscape gouaches in the prevalent style of 19th-century Netherlands. The third generation consisted of prolific landscape and animal painters. The artwork made by the Knip family raises problems of attribution since there are such close stylistic interrelationships that some form of collaboration can be assumed.