The Repast of the Lion
A lion seizes a jaguar in a jungle dense with giant leaves and flowers. A jungle made in the botanical garden by a customs-office painter who never left Paris. Full commentary ↓
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The Repast of the Lion is an oil painting by Henri Rousseau (ca. 1907) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 113.7 × 160 cm.
In the pictureBroad-leaved trees and flowers crowd the picture, and in the lower middle a lion bites the neck of a spotted animal. Every leaf has a crisp outline, and the color is divided into dozens of layers of green. A red sun rises at the top, and only a narrow strip of sky shows. The lion's expression is somehow mild.
BackgroundIt is a work of about 1907. Rousseau worked in the Paris customs office and began painting, self-taught, after he turned forty; he had never been to a jungle. He built his jungles from the greenhouses of the Paris botanical garden, magazine illustrations, and stuffed animals at the zoo. The art world of his day laughed at him, but Picasso and Apollinaire threw a banquet in his honor. The lion and jaguar in this painting came from a book of animal photographs he liked to look at.
Puzzle tipIt is green all over, but every leaf differs in shape and color, which actually makes the pieces easier to tell apart. Fix the pieces with standout colors first, such as the lion and its prey, the red sun, and the flowers, then connect the leaves by the direction of their veins and the curves of their edges. The greens growing darker toward the bottom of the picture is another clue.
- Artist
- French, Laval 1844–1910 Paris
- Classification
- Paintings
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 113.7 × 160 cm
- Credit line
- Bequest of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
In these collections: Animals in Masterpieces
Stories about this work
- Klimt, Modigliani, Rousseau, Turner: How Four Paintings Differ as Puzzles
Klimt's only full-length portrait of a child, Modigliani's last model, the jungle of a Rousseau who never saw one, and Turner melting form into light. How four very different painters differ as puzzles.
