Beyond ‘Face Value’ - French banknote design from around the world

Himanshu Prabha Ray is former Chairperson of the National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture, and former Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As a recipient of the Anneliese Maier research award of the Humboldt Foundation in 2013, she is affiliated to Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. She is also editor of Archaeology and Religion in South Asia in the Routledge Series.

Shailendra Bhandare is Assistant Keeper, South Asian and Far-eastern Numismatics and Paper Money Collections, a Fellow of St Cross College and a member of Faculty of Oriental Studies. He started his career as a Numismatist with a visiting fellowship at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. He was then appointed as a post-doctoral fellow of the Society for South Asian Studies, and worked as a curator in the British Museum on the coins of Later Mughals and the Indian Princely States. He was appointed as curator of coins in the Ashmolean Museum in 2002. He was born and brought up in Mumbai, India where he received his first degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He holds a Masters degree in History and a Doctorate in Ancient Indian Culture awarded by the University of Mumbai.

Bazil Shaikh is an author and a former central banker who served in different capacities with the Reserve Bank of India, including as Secretary to the Bank. His work areas have spanned trade, exchange rate and reserve management, rural development, human resource management, and strategic planning and governance, amongst others. He had headed the team that conceived, researched and curated the Reserve Bank Monetary Museum at Mumbai. His doctoral thesis was on the Evolution of Modern Banking in India, and he has authored several websites and publications, notably, The Paper & the Promise: A Brief History of Currency & Banknotes in India, Mint Road Milestones: RBI at 75, and The Conjuror’s Trick: An Interpretive History of Paper Money in India.

Ms.Dahanukar is an independent researcher and founder partner at Nirmiti, a brand identity design company. Money Talks is her proprietary research and passion project that argues, “Money is not just a medium of exchange but also a medium of communication.” She has presented at various conferences worldwide over the past 20 years. She is currently authoring a book on the same subject. In June 2023 she curated the exhibition titled “Banking on World Heritage” featuring UNESCO sites on banknotes as part of India’s G20 presidency program at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi under the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India. She is the curator of this exhibition, “Beyond Face Value: French Banknote Designs From Around the World” where she showcases the representation of the French Republic using its issued banknotes.