20 Dollars / 20 Piastres

The Banque de l'Indo-Chine, established by decree in January 1875, received its concession to issue currency across French Indochina just as France was consolidating its hold over Cochinchina and pressing deeper into Tonkin. This note belongs to the bank's earliest issue series — the bilingual denomination pairing of dollars and piastres reflecting the monetary reality of a region where the Mexican silver dollar remained the dominant trade coin throughout the 1870s and beyond.

Bramtot was primarily known as a painter and Prix de Rome winner; his involvement in banknote design was unusual. Wullschleger's engraving for the Banque de l'Indo-Chine series is considered among the finer intaglio work produced for French colonial currency of the period. The plate was printed in France and shipped out for issue — a logistical arrangement that made emergency replacement of damaged stock extremely slow.