A woman, depicted in a pose associated with melancholy, gazes thoughtfully at a miniature. According to information when the painting was donated, it shows Magdalena Rudenschöld at the time she was incarcerated in Stockholm’s Spinnhuset (a women’s penitentiary) and was done on the initiative of the city surgeon, Jentzen. Rudenschöld was imprisoned as a warning example in the intrigues surrounding the death of Gustav III. Her lover, Armfelt, fled the country.