Ravi Varma depicts Shakuntala, an important character of Mahabharata, pretending to remove a thorn from her foot, while actually looking for her husband/lover, Dushyantha, while her friends tease her and call her bluff.

Tapati Guha-Thakurta, an art historian, wrote; [T]his very gesture – the twist and turn of head and body – draws the viewer into the narrative, inviting one to place this scene within an imagined sequence of images and events.

On its own, the painting stands like a frozen tableau (like a still from a moving film), plucked out of an on-running spectacle of episodes.

These paintings also reflect the centrality of the "male gaze" in defining the feminine image.

Though absent from the pictorial frame, the male lover forms a pivotal point of reference, his gaze transfixes Shakuntala, as also Damayanti, into "desired" images, casting them as lyrical and sensual ideals.