Why it matters
On a moonlit night in the desert, a lion sniffs at a sleeping woman in a striped robe, with a mandolin and a water jar beside her. Rousseau wrote that the lion 'picks up her scent yet does not devour her'.
Did you know?
- It was painted in 1897.
- Olga Guggenheim donated it to MoMA in 1939.
- At MoMA it hangs next to Van Gogh's The Starry Night.
- It was featured in the 1980 BBC series 100 Great Paintings.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Sleeping Gypsy (CC BY-SA 4.0).
