500 Gulden 'Hollandia'

Lion Cachet was a Dutch artist associated with the Symbolist movement and deeply influenced by Javanese batik — an unusual choice to design high-denomination currency, but De Nederlandsche Bank made a deliberate turn toward fine art printing in the interwar period. His work for the bank produced some of the most visually distinctive Dutch notes of the twentieth century, and this 500 Gulden was among the most ambitious.

Enschedé in Haarlem had been printing for the Dutch state since the eighteenth century, giving them an unmatched institutional relationship with DNB. The 'Hollandia' series was eventually withdrawn as wartime pressures changed everything — German occupation from May 1940 forced the bank into a drastically different monetary situation, and large-denomination prewar notes were quickly rendered obsolete.