Ganga; Lakshmi and Saraswati

Ganga, the goddess of the river, is seen in her four-armed form mounted upon her vehicle the Makara, a mythical aquatic animal with the body of a fish and the trunk of an elephant. The painting is particularly interesting because it shows strong similarities to the oleographic labels pasted on bales of cloth exported to India from Manchester in the late nineteenth century. In the second work, Lakshmi and Saraswati stand upon lotus pedestals with the lotus plant blossoming around them.

For similar works from the Kalighat School see, J. Jain, Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World, Chidambaram, 1999, pl. 16 and pl. 175.