1979 - Sri Lanka - Flora and Fauna
Laki Senanayaka Paintings
5 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 5
note was developed.
Front: Landscape
At right is a nymphalid camouflaged butterfly, the Ceylon blue oakleaf
(Kallima Philarchus Philarchus)
and below the Blotch Bow-finger gecko (Gymnodactylus Yakhuna Zonatus)
featured against a scrub jungle background.
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| Sturmus Senex Laki '77
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Back: Portrait
The right hand side shows a Ceylon Breadfruit tree (Artocarpus Nobilis)
known as Hingala Dhel,
with an almost extinct Travancore flying squirrel (Pteromys Layardi) taking off at the top
and a white faced starling (Sturmus Senex)
which technically should be Sturnornis albofrontatus at bottom.
Of which a detailed drawing by Laki is shown on right.
A different bird has been drawn on the preliminary Black & White sketch shown above.
This Note displays Endemic Sri Lanka Flora and Fauna from the low altitudes.
However the back represents the Sinharaja Forest, loke the Re50 note.
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.
