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5 Livres SYRIE 1939
| Issuer | Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban |
|---|---|
| Year | 1939 |
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| Engraver(s) | Obverse: Louis-Joseph Soulas Reverse: Georges Hourriez |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is dominated by an elaborate arabesque guilloche border in green and red with stylised floral interlace. At centre, a large arched architectural vignette in intaglio frames a blank oval reserve, beneath which appears the denomination in Arabic script. The black overprint SYRIE 1939 is applied across the upper centre, with serial number and prefix repeated in the four corners and Arabic text inscriptions filling the upper and lower panels. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | سورية بنك سوريا ولبنان الكبير خمس ليرات SYRIE 1939 J. DEMARCQ FEC. L.J. SOULAS SC. |
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By 1939, the Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was operating on borrowed political time — France's League of Nations mandate over Syria was already under serious pressure, and the Franco-Syrian Treaty of 1936, which would have granted independence, had been ratified by Syria but never by the French Chamber of Deputies. This note was printed in Paris the same year France was militarizing for a war that would eventually hand Syria to the Free French, then to independence.
Soulas was among the more accomplished intaglio engravers working at the Banque de France in this period, and Hourriez's reverse engraving was executed to the same exacting standard — the Banque de France brought no lesser craft to colonial currency than to its domestic issues.