Combat d'un tigre et d'un buffle

Rousseau finished this jungle in strange circumstances. In December 1907 the self-taught painter, a retired Paris customs clerk, was convicted of helping in a bank fraud, and he was in real trouble with the court. He pleaded that he had a major picture to complete for the coming spring exhibition, and the court granted him an early release to paint it. This was that picture, shown at the Salon des Independants in the spring of 1908. Rousseau had never left France. His tiger, his buffalo and his towering leaves all come from afternoons at the Paris botanical garden and from illustrated books, which is why, if you look, the bananas hang upside down.