1000 Francs

The Banque de France stepped in to print this series after the usual contractor, the Imprimerie Nationale, was unable to meet wartime production demands — a consequence of the German occupation disrupting normal institutional arrangements. Jonas was a well-regarded poster and decorative artist whose involvement in banknote design was not unusual for French colonial issues of this period, where the boundaries between commercial illustration and official engraving work were relatively porous.

Beltrand came from a distinguished engraving dynasty; his father Jules was among the most respected wood engravers in late nineteenth-century France. Georges continued in intaglio work and his credits appear across several Banque de l'Indochine issues from the 1940s.

Pick 15 was issued as Japan's wartime occupation of Indochina collapsed in mid-1945.