The Sleeping Gypsy is a painting by Henri Rousseau, finished in 1897 and now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rousseau explained it himself: a wandering woman, worn out, sleeps in a desert at night, and a lion that chances by picks up her scent and does not devour her.
He added nothing more. The woman lies on her back with her eyes closed, a mandolin and a water jar beside her, her walking stick still in her hand, under a full moon.
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That description sounds like an eyewitness account of a night in the Sahara. Rousseau never saw a desert. He never saw a lion in the wild. He sometimes claimed to know distant countries at first hand, but he never left France.
The painter of the most silent night in modern art was a former Paris toll collector who had taught himself to paint in his spare time. His animals came from zoos, stuffed specimens, postcards and scientific illustrations, and critics of his day laughed at his flat perspective and stiff figures.
Even stranger, the canvas almost vanished soon after he finished it, and the people who finally rescued it had to be talked into believing in it.
Where did Rousseau find his lion?
In Paris, far from the Sahara. Art historians trace his animals to the zoo, to stuffed specimens in museum displays, to postcard reproductions and to scientific illustrations. The Jardin des Plantes, the city's zoo and natural history garden, is the place usually named.
The lion's eyes are wide open and its tail stands erect, the posture of an animal that is curious rather than hungry. The moon behind it carries the faint outline of a face. The woman's robe is striped in coral and blue, and she grips her walking stick even in sleep. Rousseau built the whole night out of such pieces.
Rousseau was not hiding the method. A tiger crouching in a storm, painted in 1891, shows the same way of working, and soon after he finished the new canvas, he went looking for a buyer.
What You'll Discover
Who he first tried to sell it to.
Where it was found.
Who had to vouch for it.