1979 - Sri Lanka - Flora and Fauna
Laki Senanayaka Paintings
50 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 50 note was developed.
On left, back of Note drawn in
landscape, as was the tradition
before this 1979 issue.
Front: Landscape
A bird at right, the red-faced malkoha (Phaenicophaeus Pyrrhocephalus), atop a tree (Hydnocarpus Venenata) known as Makulu gaha. At left is the rare Ceylon Forester butterfly (Lethe Dynaste), set off against a sunset over a lake background.
Back: Portrait
At bottom is a pair of birds, the Ceylon spurfowl (Galloperdix Bicalcarata), set off against a scenic background containing a Ayurvedic Diya Na tree, or the ironwood (Mesua Thwaitesii) and flowers, the Vesak orchid (Dendrobium Mccarthiae). At left is a Pinum Katussa, the Ceylon Kangaroo Lizard (Otocryptis Weigmanni).
In the region of sky in center left the pattern of the 12 brighter stars of the constellation of Orion is clearly marked.
Ceylon Spurfowl

This Note displays Endemic Sri Lanka Flora and Fauna from the Sinhraja forest of the central highlands.

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.

According to Artist Laki Senanayake, his friend Reggie Siriwardena, a Sri Lankan academic, who was also an amateur Astronomer, had suggested the name Mintaka for his daughter. Mintaka, the name of the western-most star in Orion's belt (Delta Orionis). I thank Michael Meyler for pointing out the Orion constellation about which he had heard from Laki and mentions in his appreciation.

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.
I thank Michael Meyler for the horizontal back sketch which was the original sent by Laki to Bradbury Wilkinson as a sample of his work.