This story appears in the August 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine. The royalty of India—Hindu and Muslim—understood long ago that power was best wielded from the back of an elephant.

Each of the gentle giants was painted by a mix of local and national artists, with the smaller elephants crafted by local schoolchildren and community group members. The most popular sculpture was ...

Patches of red on the legs, blue patterning over the backs, and on the heads, the ears - which are clearly the ears of an Indian south Asian elephant. The insides are painted a primrose yellow ...

82 x 125 x 40 cm. (32.3 x 49.2 x 15.7 in.) Subscribe now to view details for this work, and gain access to over 18 million auction results. Purchase One-Day Pass ...

"And then you get a message saying someone's painted you on the side of an elephant and it's somehow the most exciting thing that's happened all year. "We'd already planned, as a family ...