Figure of Bala Krishna crawling, copper alloy, Deccan, early nintennth century

Small, simple, and crudely cast figure of Bala Krishna crawling and grasping a butter ball in his right hand. He has a fan-like headdress.

Transferred from the India Museum in London to the South Kensington Museum ( now the V&A) in 1879. This figure is numbered 9019 in the India Museum Slip Book and it was recorded that it was acquired from Col MacKenzie. Colonel Colin Mackenzie was a British antiquarian who completed a major survey of the Mysore kingdom in southern India and became the first Surveyor General of India in 1815. Born in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in 1754, Mackenzie travelled to India in 1783 as an Infantry cadet in the 78th Seaforth Highlanders but in 1786 transferred to become an Engineer in the Madras Army. He spent the remainder of his life in Asia, much of it in southern India, where he carried out a survey of the Nizam of Hyderabad's Dominions (1792-8) and the Mysore Survey (1799-1810), although he also worked in other parts of India and in Java (1811-13). He died in Calcutta in 1821.

538(IS)