Girls Creating Alpona for Lakshmi Puja

Two girls are depicted in a room with earth-toned mud walls and floors. The girl on the left, wearing an orange ruffled top and blue skirt, stands to paint colorful, stylized floral vines onto the wall using a small bowl of pigment. The girl on the right, dressed in a red patterned dress, sits on the floor carefully tracing the white, intricate petals of a circular mandala-like alpona design directly onto the ground. Between them hangs a gold-colored curtain, and both girls focus intently on their respective artistic tasks.

This image documents the traditional folk art practice of alpona, a ritual painting often created on floors and walls during Hindu festivals like Lakshmi Puja to invoke prosperity and welcome the goddess into the home. These ephemeral designs are central to domestic ritual life in Bengal and other regions of India.