Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
The Sleeping Gypsy
Henri Rousseau · Naïve, folk & other
- Artist
- Henri Rousseau (1844–1910)
- Date
- 1897
- Dimensions
- 129.5 x 200.7 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States
The Sleeping Gypsy shows a woman in a striped robe asleep on the desert sand under a full moon, with a mandolin and a water jug beside her. A lion has come up behind her and sniffs at her, but does not attack.
A closer look
The scene is perfectly still and silent, bathed in cool moonlight. Rousseau painted every element with flat, clear colours and sharp outlines: the lion’s mane, the stripes of the robe, the smooth hills and the river in the distance. Strangely, the sand shows no footprints. Rousseau described the subject himself: a wandering mandolin player, exhausted, has fallen into a deep sleep, and the lion happens upon her. The dreamlike calm and mystery of the picture later fascinated the Surrealists.
