Lakshmi on her lotus in the water with elephant. Chromolithograph by R. Varma.

Lakshmi is personified as the goddess of fortune, and also the embodiment of loveliness, grace and charm. In this particular representation Lakshmi is known more commonly as Padmā. The composition served as the model for a panel on a silver teapot, part of a tea set made by Peter Orr & Sons in Madras, 1900-1907 (Dehejia, loc. cit.)

"The lithograph of Lakshmi ... was based ... on an oil he had painted a few years before (Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi), which shows the four-armed goddess against a wooded background with distant hills. Lakshmi wears a pink sari draped in a manner that was not then representative of any known regional tradition, but became fashionable as a result of the print's popularity and is now the standard manner of wearing a sari."--Dehejia, op. cit. p. 982

Bombay (182 Kalbadevi Road) : A.K. Joshi & Co. (Ghatkopar, Bombay : Ravi Udaya F.A.L. Press)

1 print : oleograph

Lakshmi. Registered no. 504. Ravi Varma. Lettering also in Devanagari script

Vidya J. Dehejia, 'Imagery by Rajah Ravi Varma on Raj silver', The Burlington magazine, October 2022, 164: 976-985 (this print pp. 979-983

Wellcome Collection 26647i