This painting comes from a dispersed Ragamala (Garland of musical modes) album. The most common configuration of ragamala comprises thirty-six musical modes: six male modes, called raga, and thirty female modes, known as ragini (five “wives” for each male). This page illustrates Vilaval Ragini, personified as a beautiful young woman preparing to join her lover. Attended by a servant, she reclines in her chamber looking at herself in a mirror; through the intimacy of the scene the artist conveys a sense of anticipation as the woman prepares herself physically and emotionally for the tryst.