The Central Reserve Bank of Peru issued a 200-sol bank note Dec. 15, completing a series started in 2021. The new issue will co-circulate with its completely different predecessor from 2012. Besides a new design, the new note is purple, green, white, and red, whereas the old one is predominantly gray with red and yellow. (Both versions are currently convertible to $54.22 U.S.)
De La Rue won the contest for the design of the note in a competition organized by the central bank, in which, the bank says, the main bank note printers in the world participated.
Notes in the new series pay tribute to Peruvian notables in the sciences and humanities and to the country’s diverse flora and fauna.
Painter and engraver Tilsa Tsuchiya Castillo (1932-1984) is on the face of the 200-sol note. Biographies in Britannica and encyclopedia.com describe her as a woman of Japanese-Peruvian descent, who used the Peruvian part of her heritage, especially the Chavín, Nazca, and Inca cultures, to create her own folklore, notably of “birdwomen.”
She studied at the National School of the Fine Arts in Lima, and at the workshops of several notable artists. She further studied painting and engraving at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1960 to 1964. The diversity of her artistic training exposed her to assorted styles including muralism, indigenism, abstract expressionism, and surrealism. She represented Peru at the XV Bienal de São Paulo (1979). Her work was exhibited throughout Europe, Latin America, and the United States. She died in Lima.
The back is designed in the currently popular vertical format. It shows renditions of the cock-of-the-rock, Peru’s national bird, and in the upper left part is the Flor Bella Abanquina (Dalechampia Aristolochiifolia, or Purple Wings), a flower representing the province of Abancay and native to its seasonal forests.
The security thread has a moving denomination 200. When the bill is turned, it shows an Andean cross that expands and contracts. The thread contains infrared elements, so it is machine detectable. The note includes a panoply of De La Rue’s oft-promoted security features, some visible only under ultraviolet light.
Source: Coin World
