10 Gulden

Austria's Privilegirte Oesterreichische National-Bank issued this note in the years immediately preceding the revolutionary upheaval of 1848, a period when the bank was already under considerable strain from government borrowing to finance military commitments across the empire. The note predates the bank's forced suspension of specie payments, which came in 1848 and would persist for over two decades — meaning notes from this series were issued under convertibility but quickly became inconvertible in practice.

Geiger was primarily a history painter and book illustrator, an unusual choice for banknote design work, though the practice of commissioning fine artists rather than commercial engravers was not uncommon in Vienna at this period. The watermark is the sole mechanical security measure.