Balaram and Kalki Avatar

This twin painting on a single canvas by Raja Ravi Varma was a format used by the artist when painting for the Ravi Varma Press. Paintings such as these would have been used as exemplars for the printing of chromolithographs by the Ravi Varma Press. Another example of two pictures on a single canvas may be found in Rupika Chawla, Raja Ravi Varma Painter of Colonial India, Ahmedabad, 2010, on p. 332 and 333 (The Killing of Kamsa and an unfinished painting of a Youthful Krishna). The present painting depicts the avatars of Lord Vishnu. The avatar on the left is that of Balarama usually depicted with a sickle or plough (plow) and the avatar on the right is that of Kalki riding a white horse. The exemplar of Kalki avatar was indeed printed as a chromolithograph from the Ravi Varma Press.