This richly carved pillar originally formed part of an enclosure railing that demarcated a sacred site at Mathura, an important religious and artistic center in northern India. The exteriors of the sanctified monuments of the indigenous religions of ancient India were often adorned with sensuous imagery to connote prosperity and the abundance of the natural world. The voluptuous woman exemplifies the Indian ideal of feminine beauty in the form of a young mother. She is depicted beneath a blossoming bakula tree (Mimusops elengi), which not only underscores the notions of nature’s fertility implicit in the sculpture but is also associated with the fluted wine cup held by the woman because it is believed that the tree will flower when a woman sprays it with wine from her mouth. At the top of the pillar, in a balcony beneath an arched roof supported by pillars with lion capitals, are two admiring onlookers. The woman on the left holds her finger in front of her mouth in a variant gesture of amazement (vismaya mudra).

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