Portraits on banknotes

@teinosuke said
The thread about Churchill's legacy reminded me of a thread I've intended to start for a while, and it's timely since the Bank of England has just unveiled the last of our new polymer banknotes. The new £50 note will feature mathematician Alan Turing. He joins painter J.M.W. Turner on the £20 note, author Jane Austen on the £10, and... Winston Churchill on the £5.

They r ...[text shortened]... which denominations would you put them, and why? What criteria would you apply to make the decision?

Oh! Excellent!

First of all, I would rename the Euro.

It would become the Florin. And 1 Florin would be 100 schillings.

The buildings portraid on the currency would be:

500 Fl: Colloseum
250 Fl: Eiffel Tower
100 Fl: Reichstag
50 Fl: Hagia Sofia (although not even EU)
20 Fl: Tower Bridge (although not even EU)
10 Fl: Each EU country picks an iconic local location.

I don’t think I’d add people.
But if I did:
500 Fl: The Nachtwacht
250 Fl: The Mona Lisa
100 Fl: The girl with the pearl Earring
50 Fl: Starry night
20 Fl: Guernica

Buildings and art are so much more important!

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Perhaps one could have Lao-tze on one denomination, and Confucius on the other! Then we could have "unnecessary arguments" about which of them deserves to be on the higher-denomination note.

@sh76 said
Without going too much into my reasoning (I don't have a ton of time right now), I'll nominate Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor and Dwight Eisenhower. If you think two SCOTUS justices is pushing it, you can replace Marshall with MLK.

I like your suggestion of Dwight Eisenhower, I also think Teddy Roosevelt deserves a spot. He was a kickass president that had many more accomplishments outside of politics. Writer, explorer, historian, military hero, and as an early environmentalist he wanted to protect our nation's wilderness areas. He was 50 years ahead of his time in that respect.

@sh76 said
Thanks.

O'Connor was the first female SCOTUS Justice and was every bit as erudite a jurist as RBG. So choosing RBG over SDO is really making a political judgment; i.e., you like her ideology better. That's fine; but I don't think commemorative decisions like this should be made solely based on political ideology.

My pick of Marshall was based both on his being the first AA ...[text shortened]... o successfully argued the most important civil rights case of all time (IMO) - Brown v. Board of Ed.

A non-political reason for having RBG rather than Sandra Day O'Connor is that it's really unusual for banknotes to feature someone who's still alive (except in those countries where the head of state is depicted).

But I also think O'Connor would be a problematic choice given that not only was she involved in the controversial Bush/Gore decision, but also was the swing vote. That's a very recent decision whose consequences are still kind of resonating very directly. Not that history isn't controversial, but I think it's better for banknotes not to feature people who were involved in controversies that living people have directly witnessed and been involved in.

I actually was a little sceptical, on those grounds, even they put Churchill on the £5, since there are still people living who voted for or against him in 1945, 1950 and 1951!

So (while it wasn't a criterion I nominated here!), from my point of view I think Thurgood Marshall, too - and even MLK and Eisenhower - are a bit too recent for my taste, though I think they're excellent choices otherwise. In particular, I think in these days of partisan politics in the US, Eisenhower would remind people that there was a time of much greater consensus, which can't be a bad thing.

With my preference for figures from more remote history, if I was going to represent women and ethnic minorities in an American context, I might choose Susan B. Anthony and Booker T. Washington.

@vivify said
Do banknotes have to have a figure born (or who lived in) the same nation they're printed in? I don't see we'd need such a limitation.

They almost always do. One exception, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the Israeli shekel, and its precursor, the Israeli lira, which have pictured famous Jews from before the foundation of the state of Israel (and in one case, a non-Israeli Jew who lived to witness its foundation) as well as Israelis. The series in circulation in the 1970s and 1980s pictured famous non-Israeli Jews like Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Moses Montefiore, Edmond James de Rothschild, and (inevitably) Theodor Herzl as well as Israeli leaders Chaim Waizmann, David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir.

Interestingly, the first series of the old lira had no human figures; the second featured human archetypes (a scientist, a labourer, pioneers in the Negev, etc), in a manner startlingly reminiscent of the banknotes of Communist countries. It's a reminder of how dominant the left was in Israel's early years.

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The very next sentence in the Wikipedia entry you cite is: "However, since the late 20th century, a more balanced view of his very wide range of activities has appeared. As of 2010, the most recent studies, "defend and celebrate his accomplishments, legacy, and leadership".

So perhaps it is time for this re-evaluation to be reflected by putting him on a banknote.

I agree, actually, that Martin Luther King would be much the best choice if the sole criteria are to represent African Americans and / or commemorate the civil rights struggle. But as I said to sh76, my preference is that people on banknotes should be from the fairly remote past, but which I mean, beyond living memory.

@shavixmir said
I don’t think I’d add people.
But if I did:
500 Fl: The Nachtwacht
250 Fl: The Mona Lisa
100 Fl: The girl with the pearl Earring
50 Fl: Starry night
20 Fl: Guernica

Buildings and art are so much more important!

I like this even though you've disobeyed the rules. Hagia Sophia is worth including to annoy Mr Erdogan; Tower Bridge to annoy Mr Johnson.

However, the trouble with putting artworks on the other side is that it means we can't feature the great artists in other media. So if was going to represent Europe's artistic heritage, and sticking to countries in the present eurozone / future florin-zone, I think I'd go with:

Dante
Rembrandt (portrayed in a self-portrait)
Calderon de la Barca
Beethoven (could be Mozart)
Flaubert
Jean Renoir (who would be the second film director on a banknote, after Ingmar Bergman on the 200-kronor note in his his native Sweden)

This covers poetry, painting, theatre, music, the novel and cinema. I add a 10 Fl: note to make sure there are enough. It also covers the Eurozone (or Florinzone's) five most populous nations.

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As I say, because I was starting from the position (my preference, not part of the rules of this thread for everyone) that I'd want my choices to be beyond living memory - as all my nominations for UK banknotes are going to be.

But in this case I think I'll make an exception for Martin Luther King.

@teinosuke said
I like this even though you've disobeyed the rules. Hagia Sophia is worth including to annoy Mr Erdogan; Tower Bridge to annoy Mr Johnson.

However, the trouble with putting artworks on the other side is that it means we can't feature the great artists in other media. So if was going to represent Europe's artistic heritage, and sticking to countries in the present eurozon ...[text shortened]... ake sure there are enough. It also covers the Eurozone (or Florinzone's) five most populous nations.

I used painters because you print notes... it suits the medium.

@shavixmir said
I used painters because you print notes... it suits the medium.

Good reason!

But Dante's profile is very impressive!