Lucien Jonas (1880-1947)

Born in 1880 and awarded the Prix de Rome in 1905, Jonas was appointed the official painter of the French Navy in 1916, and was already an accom­plished artist when the Banque de France asked him to design its notes in 1933. By that time he had pro­duced a pro­lific and diverse body of work. His early com­pos­i­tions were very real­istic depic­tions of working life, notably of the mines in northern France where he was born. He also painted a number of por­traits, both official (for example, General Per­shing in 1917 – cur­rently in the Met­ro­politan Museum of New York – and Marshal Foch) and private, along with major murals in the north of France (the ceiling of the Chamber of Com­merce, the town hall in Valen­ciennes, for example) and in Paris (the Maison des Centraux building). Jonas’s work also included illus­tra­tions for major lit­erary works and paintings of intimate scenes such as