5 000 000 Lei

Romania's postwar hyperinflation reached grotesque proportions by 1947, and this denomination — five million lei — reflects just how far the currency had collapsed. The National Bank had been issuing ever-larger denominations in rapid succession since the war's end, each one obsolete almost before it cleared the presses. This note was among the last of that inflating series; the monetary reform of August 1947 replaced the entire lei system at a rate of 20,000 old lei to one new leu, rendering notes of this face value worth a fraction of a new coin.

Gaspérini was a French engraver working for the Romanian state printing house — his credit appears on several notes of this period. The design draws on Grigorescu's paintings, an unusually high-culture choice for currency already being outpaced by inflation.