When we think of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) we evoke his paintings of jungles and monkeys, which are indeed what made him immortal, but this self-taught painter started with something else. He embarked on the path of an artist when he was a middle-aged man holding the mundane job of tax collector at the Seine port (“customs officer” was the erroneous but catchy moniker given to him by the poet Alfred Jarry).

His early works depicted his surroundings (the Paris suburb of Laval), portraits of his family, and his first customers: a grocer to whom he owed money or the parents of a small girl who wanted her portrait. The picture called Père Junier’s Cart is as unsophisticated as it is utterly charming—an entire family is on an outing in a simple two-wheel cart, with one grey terrier who scored seating, and two other dogs, perhaps strays, running next to the cart. The horse sports a jaunty mane, and the trees have every leaf painted in. While this painting helped Rousseau pay his grocery bills, it still remained in the category of “naïf art” and could not compete with the “fine art” that filled the Louvre and Luxembourg museums. However, Rousseau was unshaken in his conviction that his style had its place among French culture. In fact, he was quite obsessed with achieving professional recognition.

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