The Sleeping Gypsy

Henri Rousseau

Oil on canvas

Museum of Modern Art

Painted in 1897 and first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, The Sleeping Gypsy depicts a dark-skinned woman in a striped robe lying asleep in an arid desert landscape beneath a moonlit sky, while a maned lion approaches and sniffs at her. Beside the sleeping figure rest a mandolin and a tall water jar, objects Rousseau himself identified in his own description of the work. A self-taught toll collector for the city of Paris, Rousseau worked in a distinctly naïve style characterized by flat planes of color, simplified forms, and a dreamlike, otherworldly atmosphere. The painting is widely regarded as one of the most significant works of naïve art and a landmark of early modern painting, admired by major avant-garde figures including Pablo Picasso and anticipated the visual language of Surrealism.