The daughter of an architect, Goncharova studied art at Moscow, where she met her lifetime companion, the painter Mikhail Larionov. In 1911 Goncharova made her first designs for Diaghilev's Russian ballet and in 1917 she settled permanently in Paris. This vibrant Futurist composition of 1912-13 depicts a woman in a headscarf leaning over an industrial loom, illuminated by an electric light.