250 Livres

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French concessionary institution — not a central bank in any sovereign sense, but a private entity operating under a mandate framework, issuing currency for territories France administered under League of Nations authority. The 1939 date is significant: notes printed that year were produced on the eve of war, and the fall of France in June 1940 created immediate questions about the bank's relationship to Vichy versus Free French authority, a dispute that had direct consequences for currency validity across the Levant.

Banque de France handled the intaglio work, with Hourriez on the obverse plate and Bornet on the reverse — a division of labor typical of the Paris atelier for high-denomination colonial issues.