1979 - Sri Lanka - Flora and Fauna
Laki Senanayaka Paintings
2 Rupee note
In 1977 Laki Senanayaka was commissioned to design, draw and Paint the
set of currency Notes based on the theme Endemic
Flora and Fauna of Sri Lanka, which were issued by the Central Bank of
Ceylon (CBSL) dated 1979-03-26 and put into circulation in 1980 August.
Illustrates how the layout design of the Rs 2
note was developed.
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| On left, back of Note drawn in landscape, as was the tradition before this 1979 issue.
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Front: Landscape
On the right is a tropical cyprinid fish swimming left, the black ruby barb
(Puntius Nigrofasciatus) or purplehead barb
with some rocks in the background.
Back: Portrait
At the bottom is a lizard, the Haly's tree skink (Dasia Haliana)
atop a branch of a tropical, evergreen ornamental plant (Murraya Cleniei)
and at top a nymphalid butterfly, the Tamil lacewing (Cathosia Nietheri Nietheri).
This Note displays Endemic Sri Lanka Flora and Fauna from sea level of
coastal area.
On Laki's request the back of the notes switched to Portrait mode for
the first time, and has remained that way for all future series of
definitive currency notes issued in Sri Lanka.
The website lakisenanayake.com has images of 44 of his designs
which had been painted at about 3 times the scale and had been scanned
at 100 dpi. Displayed above at 50 dpi of the issued note.
I thank Dominic Sansoni and Laki's daughter Mintaka for permission to
use the images of these paintings in the
notes.lakdiva.org.lk website.