  We carried out deep optical observations of the middle-aged $\gamma$-ray
pulsar PSR J1741-2054 with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We identified two
objects, of magnitudes $m_v=23.10\pm0.05$ and $m_v=25.32\pm0.08$, at positions
consistent with the very accurate Chandra coordinates of the pulsar, the
faintest of which is more likely to be its counterpart. From the VLT images we
also detected the known bow-shock nebula around PSR J1741-2054. The nebula is
displaced by $\sim 0\farcs9$ (at the $3\sigma$ confidence level) with respect
to its position measured in archival data, showing that the shock propagates in
the interstellar medium consistently with the pulsar proper motion. Finally, we
could not find evidence of large-scale extended optical emission associated
with the pulsar wind nebula detected by Chandra, down to a surface brightness
limit of $\sim 28.1$ magnitudes arcsec$^{-2}$. Future observations are needed
to confirm the optical identification of PSR J1741-2054 and characterise the
spectrum of its counterpart.
