Monaco
2004-2005
The first six months programme
of issues from Monaco for 2004 includes a set issued on 29th January 2004 for
Princess Grace. There are four values in the definitive set:
0.5, 1.11, 1.45, and 19.0 €.
The 1.11 € value is a
Bazzoli/Slania design, but NOT ENGRAVED
by Slania. The stamp is printed in offset and is 40*30 mm horizontal as
shown below. The stamp commemorates the 25th anniversary of the foundation
of the Irish Library which was opened
in November 1984 by Rainier III in honor of Princess Grace's Irish
origins.
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The Slania part of the
design is on the left hand side of the stamp, and is a copy of the 1996
Europa Issue for Famous Women showing Princess Grace. The original
1996 stamp has Princess Grace looking to the left hand side.
This stamp has the
Slania design on the left hand side, but the Princess Grace portrait is
mirrored to have her look at the shamrock to the right with the Princess's
monogram. The
original 1996-stamp is available here for comparison. The link will
open in a new window.
Scott # 2320 |
| Incidentally, it strikes me, how extremely well the graphic
design of this stamp is done. If you focus strictly on the cypher (created
by Slania prior to 1982) it seems to have roughly the same shape as the
shamrock (trefoil), that is the symbolic background of the cypher.
The shamrock is
not an official emblem in the Republic of Ireland - the state emblem is
the 12-stringed harp and this is embossed on official government documents
and is on the presidential standard. However the green
trefoil is registered under international trade-mark conventions as a
symbol of Ireland. Shamrocks do not appear on Irish coins, bank-notes or
postage stamps, as a rule. |
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On October 4, 2004 Monaco has marked the 75th anniversary of the
birth (November 12, 1929) of their beloved Princess Grace. The label at the bottom of the sheet contains a surprise: "Hommage à
Grace, Patricia KELLY", goes against the story that Prince Rainier was
upset when the U.S. commemorative of 1993 (Scott 2749) was issued with her
American name "Grace Kelly". Perhaps the Prince has had a change
of heart in his old age.
Three portraits of the princess, printed in royal blue, at
different times of her life, by three different engravers, form the designs of
three stamps, valued at € 0.75, 1.75, and 3.50. The low value shows her
as a young actress in a portrait designed and engraved by
Pierre Albuisson. The middle stamp shows her as a young princess in an
engraving by Czeslaw Slania which was made some years ago as an essay. On
the high value she is the mature wife of the head of state and mother of three
in her later life, engraved by the Swedish engraver Martin Mörck.
The unvalued Royal Cypher Monogram was created by Slania for
Princess Grace prior to 1982, and was first used for the Princess
Grace Memorial sheet, issued in black April
1983 (Scott 1367). For the new issue the years of her birth and death
have been added to her Cypher.
All information
from "Close-Up", No. 3/2004.
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Monaco 2004. An exhibition card from MonacoPhil 2004,
showing a reproduction of the original sheet (but with the show's
logo). Below the images are facsimiles of the engravers' signatures,
including Slania's (Pierre Albuisson, Slania, Martin Mörck, and Catelin). The outer frame of the card is slightly raised
above the rest of the area shown as a pale grey outline in the scan), giving
the impression of embossing. Image by courtesy of Mr. Gerry Fisk
(GB).
| The first stamp to appear from Monaco in 2005 was this one,
depicting the late Prince Rainier III, who passed away early 2005. The
stamp is a re-use of an earlier Slania-design (1989-1991). Not yet
listed in Scott.
It appears in a pane of three (shown below), of which Slania has
engraved the stamp of Prince Rainier, and Martin Mörck the stamp of the
Princely Palace and of Prince Albert.
Images by courtesy of Jose Maria Lopez Muñoz (Spain) |
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