Project of a non-adopted 25 pesetas banknote represented by the front and back on cardboard, dated April 23, 1956. The front represents Concepción Arenal and the back shows the Tower of Hercules, two Galician elements in the design (remember that Galicia appears for the first and only time in the 500 pesetas of 1979, with Rosalía de Castro). It is a unique complex of exceptional beauty, worthy of a museum.
The banknote is built using the gouache technique, tinting the colors by diluting them with water, and is a magnificent example of a complete design of a possible banknote produced by artists from the FMNT The obverse is finished since it is contemplated until the possible printing of the offset of the funds. The reverse shows a lot of empty space, but provides a poetic suggestion of the watermark like the sun on the sea. The global design has a theme that perhaps would have fit better in the 1946 broadcast, with humanists such as Father Vitoria and Luis Vives, but it certainly fit with the proposal of relevant cultural figures from Spain that had been developing.
We do not know the authorship of the project, but he must have been one of the best draftsmen / engravers since it is completely finished. Perhaps the reverse, simpler of lines, was not by the same author, although we cannot affirm it. Despite the fact that the drawing is well made, the set seems too traditional for the date and has little elaborate borders, reminiscent of its composition at the 500 pesetas of 1940 from Señor de Orgaz.
The sketch is dated April 1956, so, according to Don Ramón Cobo Huici, if accepted, it would have been in circulation around the end of 1958/59. In 1956, Albéniz's 1954 25-peseta banknote had just begun to be manufactured (in 1955), so we think that this very advanced sketch would belong to a project for a reserve issue. However, the 1957 authorization for the issuance of metallic currency cut off this project. In 1953 and 1954, Taylor minters were installed to produce the new nickel coins of 5, 25 and 50 pesetas dated 1957. In fact, the 5-pesetas note from 1951 stopped being manufactured in 1956 and the 25 and 50 pesetas , which had just begun to be printed, were allowed to circulate for a few more years and their production stopped in the same year (1963). By making the value of 25 pesetas on paper obsolete, the need to continue printing banknotes of that value was abolished. For this reason, this sketch had no possibility of being engraved.
Unique piece of enormous interest.
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