Le repas du lion (c.1907)

Rousseau, Henri (1844-1910)

Le repas du lion (The Repast of the Lion)
c.1907
Oil on canvas, 113.7 x 160 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

This work was probably shown in the Salon d’Automne of 1907, but it treats a theme that Rousseau first explored in Surprised! of 1891 (National GalleryLondon). He based the exotic vegetation of his many jungle pictures on studies that he made in Paris’s botanical gardens, and adapted the wild beasts from popular ethnographic journals and illustrated children’s books. Rousseau’s nickname, “le Douanier,” derives from his job as a customs official. (MET)