11 JULY 1987, Page 24

Arcimboldo in India

Sir: I was interested by the review of The Arcrirnboldo Effect (Books, 30 May 1987). The art gallery of the City Palace in Jaipur has a couple of examples of this genre, one an elephant composed of women. In the Central Museum in the same city is a figurine of a horse made up by acrobats. These are obviously Indian and presum- ably 19th- or 20th-century, but did they derive from Western ideas or were they spontaneous? Certainly I do not recall seeing anything similar elsewhere in India. John Leak

Mayfield House, St Bees, Cumbria