Focus on this artwork and explain the Description.
Rousseau described his painting as follows: "A wandering Negress, a mandolin player, lies with her jar beside her (a vase with drinking water), overcome by fatigue in a deep sleep. A lion chances to pass by, picks up her scent yet does not devour her. There is a moonlight effect, very poetic. The scene is set in a completely arid desert.  The gypsy is dressed in oriental costume."In the painting, a dark-skinned woman – the Romany gypsy of the title, variously linked in French literature to Bohemia or to Egypt – is sleeping in an arid landscape with mountains in the background, under a dark sky with a few stars and a full moon.  She is wearing a long robe with a rainbow of colourful stripes, perhaps a djellaba or jellabiya, and lies upon a similarly striped cloth.  Her right hand holds a staff, while beside her rests a mandolin and a tall jar with slim neck.  While she continues to lie passively, a maned lion has approached and dips its head to cautiously sniff.  
The painting measures 129.5 cm × 200.7 cm (51.0 in × 79.0 in).  Although painted in a naïve manner, with simple shapes and large blocks of colour, the painting may be based on Rousseau's observations of animals at the Jardin des Plantes and of reconstructed colonial villages at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris.
Jardin des Plantes Bohemia Egypt jellabiya naïve Romany gypsy 1889 World's Fair djellaba