12 1/2 Euros - Philippe Queen Marie Henriette

This piece belongs to a Belgian royal portrait series pairing monarchs with their consorts — Philippe with Marie Henriette of Austria, who reigned as Queen of the Belgians from 1853 until her death in 1902. Marie Henriette was notoriously unhappy in her marriage to Leopold II, spending her later years largely in Spa, where she died in relative isolation. The denomination itself, 12½ euros, is a modern construct engineered to accommodate a one-gram-plus gold bullion format at a nominal face value rather than any historical monetary unit.