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How did Henri Rousseau explain the unusual scene in The Dream?
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Henri Rousseau
Myself: Portrait-Landscape, oil on canvas by Henri Rousseau, 1890; in the National Gallery, Prague. 146 × 113 cm.
In his 1910 painting The Dream, Henri Rousseau depicted a nude woman resting on a red plush Victorian sofa situated within a dense, exotic jungle filled with lions, an elephant, and a flute player.
Rousseau explained that the scene represents the woman having fallen asleep on the sofa, at which point she dreams that she is transported to this improbable, fantastical region.1