100 Livres Libanaises

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French concessionary institution — its note-issuing authority derived not from an independent central bank but from a 1919 concession granted to a private French concern, the Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban. By 1945, both Syria and Lebanon were in the final, turbulent stages of ending that arrangement entirely; Syria would strip the bank of its monopoly within a few years, and Lebanon would eventually replace it with the Banque du Liban in 1964.

Broutin and Armanelli were both seasoned Banque de France engravers. Fel, less frequently credited on colonial-sphere issues, brought a measured classicism to the design that reflects the Banque de France's house aesthetic of the period.