1894
Oil on canvas, 114 x 195 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
The artist exhibited this painting in 1894 at the Salon des Indépendants. Although the motif is often found in nineteenth-century art, the painting nevertheless represents a completely independent work. Rousseau treats the subject of was with a naiveté reminiscent of children's or folk art without concrete references to place and time. The picture evokes however a horribly ghostly and nightmarish atmosphere.
