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The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French concessionary institution — a private bank granted monetary authority over Syria and Lebanon under the French Mandate. This 1939 issue arrived as that political arrangement was already under strain, with Syrian nationalists pushing hard against the mandate structure and war in Europe imminent. The note was engraved by two of the Banque de France's most accomplished intaglio specialists: Marguerite Dreyfus, known professionally as Rita, one of the few women to hold a senior engraving position at the institution, and Georges Beltrand, from a dynasty of French engravers with roots in the nineteenth century.