Figure of Lakshmi-Narayana, copper alloy, South India, early nineteenth century

Seated figure of Narayana (an epithet of Vishnu) with Lakshmi (Sri) on his left knee, in lalitasana pose. Lakshmi holds her right arm round Vishnu's shoulders. Vishnu's two upper hands hold a conch-shell (shanka) and a wheel (chakra), while the lower right is in abhaya mudra. His lower left arm supports Laksmi who is supported on his right knee. It is cast n one piece with a typical moudled southern base with incised lotus petal decoration. There are holes for a missing arch at the back of the base.

Transferred from the India Museum in London to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1879. It is numbered 350 in the India Museum Slips and is recorded as being received from Colonel MacKenzie who was 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.

520(IS)