The Sleeping Gypsy (La Bohémienne endormie), 1897

The print

Printed by theprintspace, the East London fine-art lab trusted by artists, galleries and museums. Each print is made to order on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, a heavyweight 308gsm paper made from 100% cotton, with a soft matte surface and a natural white tone, using archival pigment inks made to last for generations.

Photo Rag suits this painting especially well. Its matte cotton surface suits the flat, clear planes of colour and cool moonlight, with no reflection to break the stillness of the night sky.

Sizes available:

45×30cm, 18×12″, fine art print, open edition
60×40cm, 24×16″, fine art print, open edition
100×70cm, 39×28″, fine art print, open edition

Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.

The story

Rousseau showed The Sleeping Gypsy at the Salon des Indépendants in 1897, then tried to sell it to the mayor of Laval, the town in western France where he was born. In his letter he described a wandering mandolin player, worn out and fast asleep with her jug of water beside her, and a lion who happens by, sniffs at her and does not eat her. The mayor thought it childish and said no.

The painting then all but vanished. When it resurfaced in the 1920s it looked so unlike anything else that some suspected a forgery.

They were wrong. Its flat colour, precise outlines and dreamlike stillness made it a favourite of the modernists, and in 1939 Mrs Simon Guggenheim gave it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where it remains one of the most-loved paintings in the collection.