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Born into the aristocratic milieu of the Tagore family in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Sunayani Devi was one of the pioneering women modernist artists of India. Her elder siblings were Gaganendranath Tagore and Abanindranath Tagore, while Rabindranath was her uncle. In spite of the progressive context of her family, she was largely confined to the domestic sphere, leading commentators of her work to label her art as primitivist or ‘naïve’, reflecting the spiritual purity of the inner chambers of such households where the men were seen to be tainted by the colonial world outside. In this delicate work—executed in embroidered silk laid on a mount board—Sunayani Devi highlights the solitude of her subject, who is surrounded by empty white space.