25 Livres

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a privately held French concession bank — its right to issue currency in Syria and Lebanon was never uncontested. By the time this note was printed, Syrian independence was already a political reality, and France's grip on the region was collapsing fast. The bank lost its Syrian issuing privilege entirely in 1950, making late-1940s issues like this one among the final notes produced for a monetary arrangement that was already obsolete when the ink dried.

Serveau and Deloche were a well-matched pairing — both did sustained work for the Banque de France on prestige intaglio commissions throughout the mid-century. Deloche's engraving on this series is notably fine-grained.