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Lighthouse banknote
‘Cheerfulness, respectability and dignity’, that’s what the 250 guilder note from designer R.D.E. (‘Ootje’ - pronounced ‘Oh-chuh’) Oxenaar was intended to exude. The lighthouse, which was inspired by the one at Haamstede in Zeeland, was a recognisable and identifiable Dutch symbol that perfectly met these DNB requirements. Thanks to the transverse placement of the lighthouse, the design broke with conventions and invited interaction, as the user had to turn the note and view it in ‘upright’ position. A magnifying glass would also come in handy, as is shown by a special detail: a legible poem in letters only 0.2 mm tall. Here’s what it says in translation:
The waves in wild and furious dance,
The clouds rush past the fading sun,
And break upon the distant run,
The lighthouse stands in tempest’s trance,
Proud in its solitude, its stance,
As if the heavy steel, once spun,
Could not endure without its glance.
© DNB
The poem consists of 40 words (in the original Dutch) and was mainly intended as a security feature. Making banknotes that were hard to counterfeit had high priority for DNB even then. The designer met this challenge creatively. For instance, the watermark – a dune rabbit – fits the theme seamlessly. The adorable creature was actually modelled on Oxenaar’s pet rabbit Nikkie.
The banknote’s denomination was also innovative in its own right. In fact, it was the only 250-guilder note ever issued. With the Lighthouse, DNB was responding to a need for notes with a value between 100 and 1,000 guilders. Thanks to rising prosperity, f 100 notes made up almost half of the banknotes in circulation at the time. The Lighthouse was almost immediately popular with the public, both for its practical value and its design. It is part of the huisje-boompje-beestje (house-tree-animal) series: a series of banknotes that had to have an recognisable and easily identifiable appearance – something that the Lighthouse certainly succeeded at.
