1979 - Sri Lanka - Flora and Fauna
Laki Senanayaka Paintings
2 Rupee note

In 1977 Laki Senanayaka was commissioned to design, draw and Paint the set of currency Notes based on the theme Endemic Flora and Fauna of Sri Lanka, which were issued by the Central Bank of Ceylon (CBSL) dated 1979-03-26 and put into circulation in 1980 August.
Illustrates how the layout design of the Rs 2 note was developed.
On left, back of Note drawn in
landscape, as was the tradition
before this 1979 issue.
Front: Landscape
On the right is a tropical cyprinid fish swimming left, the black ruby barb (Puntius Nigrofasciatus) or purplehead barb with some rocks in the background.
Back: Portrait
At the bottom is a lizard, the Haly's tree skink (Dasia Haliana) atop a branch of a tropical, evergreen ornamental plant (Murraya Cleniei) and at top a nymphalid butterfly, the Tamil lacewing (Cathosia Nietheri Nietheri).

This Note displays Endemic Sri Lanka Flora and Fauna from sea level of coastal area.

On Laki's request the back of the notes switched to Portrait mode for the first time, and has remained that way for all future series of definitive currency notes issued in Sri Lanka.

The website lakisenanayake.com has images of 44 of his designs which had been painted at about 3 times the scale and had been scanned at 100 dpi. Displayed above at 50 dpi of the issued note. I thank Dominic Sansoni and Laki's daughter Mintaka for permission to use the images of these paintings in the notes.lakdiva.org.lk website.