1000 Gulden Baruch d'Espinoza

Ootje Oxenaar's commission for this note marked a deliberate break from the conservative engraved portraiture that had defined Dutch banknote design for generations. His approach was graphic and modernist — and the choice of Baruch de Spinoza as the face of the highest-denomination note was itself a pointed act of cultural rehabilitation. Spinoza had been excommunicated from Amsterdam's Jewish community in 1656 under a herem of unusual severity, and for centuries remained a controversial figure in Dutch public life.

By 1972, placing him on the 1000 Gulden was an unambiguous statement. The note circulated until the guilder's replacement by the euro in 2002.