Segantini painted The Punishment of Lust in 1891; it was an early entry in a thematic series on cattive madri (bad mothers) that he produced between 1891 and 1896 (the Nirvana cycle). Taking its inspiration from Nirvana published in 1889 – supposedly a translation from the 12th-century Indian Panghiavahli of Maironpada by the librettist Luigi Illica but probably written by him or translated from an intermediate work –[3] it shows women being punished for preferring a life of ease over a life of duty by being suspended among the barren landscape of the Alps.[4]