200 Pesetas Bayeu and Fortuny

The 1996 Spanish 200-peseta series was part of a sustained effort by the Real Casa de la Moneda to honor figures from the nation's artistic heritage before peseta coinage was retired ahead of euro adoption. Francisco Bayeu, the less-celebrated of the two, was Goya's brother-in-law and early mentor — a court painter whose reputation was largely eclipsed by his famous pupil. Marià Fortuny, the Catalan painter, died at 36 in Rome, leaving a body of work that commanded extraordinary prices in his own lifetime and shaped a generation of European orientalist painting.