We briefed Bibi at Her Mirror as a classical Kalighat genre study — the woman at her toilette was one of the patuas' most loved subjects, painted with frank warmth rather than mockery. The whole figure is a single sweeping line: hips and the swell of the saree carried in one boneless curve, the torso twisting so the head turns back over the shoulder toward the brown hand mirror she lifts in one hand, the other raised to arrange her hair. We dressed her in a deep indigo saree with a brick-red border so the body reads against the plain cream ground, and let a silver hoop earring, bangles and a brick-red bindi carry the small ornament. The mirror does double duty — her object of attention and ours — and that quiet self-regard is the entire picture. No dressing table, no room, no clutter; just the bibi, the saree's sweep and the mirror.