10 Francs Famous Paintings - 'Rue Montorgueil, Festival'

Monet painted La Rue Montorgueil à Paris, Fête du 30 Juin 1878 during the national festival celebrating the Paris World's Fair, working from a second-floor window — possibly a borrowed apartment — to capture the street's dense flag-draped crowd from above. The painting remained largely unknown until it surfaced at a Paris auction in 1960, purchased by the Musée d'Orsay's predecessor institution for a fraction of what it would command today.

Congo's "Famous Paintings" series was a commercial numismatic product aimed squarely at the collector market, with no domestic circulation intended.