Spain Banknotes 1 Peseta banknote 1948 Lady of Elche
Bank of Spain - Banco de España
Obverse: Effigy of Lady of Elche or Lady of Elx, engraved by José Luis López and Alfonos López Sánchez.
Reverse: Orange twig.
Signatures: Antonio Goicoechea Cosculluela (Governor - El Gobernador, April 1938 - August 1950); Antonio Victoriano Martín Martín (The Auditor - El Interventor); (Cashier - El Cajero).
Date of Issue: 19 June 1948 (circulated from 18 March 1949).
Printer: Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre, Madrid.
Size: 84 x 58 mm. Circulation: 161 952 000.
Spain Banknotes - Spain Paper Money
1948-1949 Issue
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Lady of Elche
The Lady of Elche or Lady of Elx (Spanish: Dama de Elche; Valencian: Dama d'Elx) is a once polychrome stone bust that was discovered by chance in 1897 at L'Alcúdia, an archaeological site on a private estate about two kilometers south of Elx/Elche, Alicante (autonomous community of Valencia), Spain. The Lady of Elche is generally believed to be a piece of Iberian sculpture from the 4th century BC, though the artisanship suggests strong Hellenistic influences. According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the Lady of Elche (Roman Illici), is conjectured as having a direct association with Tanit, the goddess of Carthage, that was worshiped by the Punic-Iberians.
The originally polychrome bust is usually thought to represent a woman wearing a very complex headdress and large wheel-like coils (known as rodetes) on each side of the face. The aperture in the rear of the sculpture indicates it may have been used as a funerary urn.
The Lady of Guardamar is a closely similar female bust, 50 cm high, also dated circa 400 BCE, that was discovered in fragments in the Phoenician archaeological site of Cabezo Lucero in Guardamar del Segura in Alicante province, Spain, in 1987. The Lady of Guardamar has similar wheel-like rodetes and necklaces.
While it is a bust, there are proposals that it was part of a seated statue like the Lady of Baza or a standing one like the Gran Dama Oferente from Cerro de los Santos (Montealegre del Castillo, Albacete). The necklaces with their pendants are closely similar to those found on the Lady of Baza, discovered about 130 miles to the south west.
The three figures and the Bicha of Balazote are exhibited in the same hall in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid.
The sculpture was found in August 4, 1897 by a young worker, Manuel Campello Esclapez. This "popular" version of the story differs from the official report by Pere Ibarra (the local keeper of the records) which stated that Antonio Maciá found the bust.
Pierre Paris, a French archaeological connoisseur, purchased the sculpture within a few weeks and shipped it to France, where it was shown at the Louvre Museum and hidden for safe-keeping during World War II.
The Vichy government negotiated with Franco's government its return to Spain in 1940–1941, and on June 27, 1941 the sculpture was placed in the Museo del Prado (Madrid), then moved to the National Archaeological Museum, where it remains.
The discovery of the Lady of Elche initiated a popular interest in pre-Roman Iberian culture. She appeared on a 1948 Spanish one-peseta banknote and was mentioned in William Gaddis's The Recognitions (1955).
The sculpture was temporarily on display from May 18 to November 1, 2006 at the Museo Arqueológico y de Historia de Elche, where it is now represented by a replica.