Framed The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau

The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau is one of the French artist’s most iconic and dreamlike works, blending a sense of innocence with surreal mystery. The painting depicts a lone figure—a woman described as a “gypsy”—asleep on the desert ground under a luminous night sky. She wears a striped robe and lies beside a mandolin and a water jug, suggesting a life of wandering. Looming over her is a lion, its head bent close as if sniffing or guarding her, yet it does not attack. The stillness of the desert, the clarity of the moonlight, and the bold, simplified forms create a haunting, otherworldly atmosphere. Rousseau, a self-taught painter often mocked in his time, used his naïve style to heighten the dreamlike tension between danger and serenity, fragility and protection.