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Gajalakshmi: Lakshmi with Elephants
c. 1890
- Medium
- Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Secondary Support: 60.7 x 42.4 cm (23 7/8 x 16 11/16 in.); Painting only: 43 x 27.7 cm (16 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Seated on a lotus in the yoga lotus position (padmasana), Lakshmi (wife of Vishnu and goddess of fortune, prosperity, and beauty) is flanked by elephants that anoint her and express their devotion by bathing her with water from the pot held aloft with their trunks. The lotus seat serves as a throne while the elephants’ trunks form an arch within which she is enshrined.
