Renaldi obtained permission from the British East India Company to travel to Calcutta in 1786. Over the next decade, he produced sensitive portraits that revel in the sumptuous textiles and rich jewels that provided much of the impetus for European colonialism in South Asia. Renaldi almost certainly sent this painting back to London for display at the prestigious Royal Academy under the title "Portrait of a Mogul [Mughal] Lady." However, nothing of the sitter’s identity is known. Given the seclusion of elite Muslim women in India at the time, she may have been a hired model or a so-called bibi, an Indian woman who became the wife or concubine of a European man.
