Johannes Resen-Steenstrup was born to Johannes Resen Steenstrup and Johanne Bruun in Stubbekobing, Denmark on April 24, 1868. He married Meta Kjeldsen in Sebber on July 9, 1898. He was a painter, draftsman, designer, illustrator, and printmaker who concentrated on the portrayal of animal life. For a short time, Resen-Steenstrup designed porcelain pieces for Bing and Grondahl Porcelain. After Resen-Steenstrup died in Copenhagen on February 11, 1921, his friend the sculptor N. Hansen-Jacobsen wrote this tribute:

"Resen Steenstrup belonged to those artists about whose work there was no clamor - which he himself would hardly have appreciated - he should never try to push himself forward or "use" his fellow human beings for his own purposes.
It was the animals that were his field, there he came to do his best - already as a boy it was the animals that he wanted to portray, and that interest remained right to the end - he loved them and portrayed them with fine feeling and love - those who have pictures of him indoors do well to keep them - these are pictures of our domestic animals, they are portrayed with a fixed form and naturally placed in the landscape.
It was always a joy to talk to him at home or meet him at an exhibition, it was a friend who came to meet you, and he never had to deal with the serious illness that repeatedly stopped him in his best years of work, admirably he did not lose heart, but took up the challenge again. We, his friends, will miss him, we have lost a good and faithful friend."

(From the magazine Slægten 1922)