Attractive women on banknotes were a very popular theme at one time in many parts of the globe, now they are rather scarce and usually replaced with political figures or in Europe with bridges. Even in the USA there were once attractive notes with females on them, notably the 1896 Silver Certificate series, which was quite shortlived because of the scantily clad and rather curvaceous female as the central figure on the front of the $5 bill. More recently beginning in the 1950's females were usually the central attraction on USA Military Payment Certificates which were used by the armed services overseas.

A vignette from the reverse of a Czech Republic test note, this is work inspired by the great Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Marie Mucha(1860-1939) The banknotes of this Central European country were the inspiration of my collecting interest in banknotes that featured attractive females as vignettes. In fact, it would seem that though for about a 40 year period, several European countries seemed to have competed with one another with the artistry of their paper money. Many of the paper money designs from this era from ca. 1900-1940 were designed by recognized artists such as Mucha, but also Emile Vloors in Belgium, Clement Serveau in France and Romania. Some paper money was inspired out of this time though, artwork from the past such as Albrecht Durer's "Venetian Woman" became the focal vignette on the 5 Deutsch Mark note that was first released in 1960.