* 04/12/2009 :

New Issues on December 4, 2009

2010 INTERNATIONAL CAT SHOW
Organized by the Association Féline de Monaco, the 3rd International Cat Show will be held on February 20 and 21, 2010 at the Rainier III Auditorium. The cat on the stamp is a Bengal female named Junglewhisper Elia of Jaipur’s Angels, winner of the world championship title in 2009.

50th ANNIVERSARY OF AYRTON SENNA’S BIRTH
Ayrton “Magic” Senna was born in São Paulo in 1960. He is considered one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time: three times world champion, he won 41 grand prix races and was in pole position 65 times. A genuine idol in Brazil, Senna gave generously to his country’s charity organizations. After his death on May 1, 1994 at Imola, his sister, Viviane Senna, completed his project to aid the most underprivileged children by creating the Ayrton Senna Foundation.

CENTENARY OF JEAN ANOUILH’S BIRTH
The French writer and playwright Jean Anouilh was born in Bordeaux in 1910 and died in Lausanne in 1987. After writing his first theatre play, L’Hermine, in 1932, he confirmed his success in 1937 with Le Voyageur sans bagages. Written in 1944, his best known and most often performed play is Antigone, a modern adaptation of Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy.

170th ANNIVERSARY OF AUGUSTE RODIN’S BIRTH
The great sculptor Auguste Rodin was born in Paris in 1840 and died in Meudon in 1917. In 1877, he created his first major work, L'Age d'Airain, so realistic in appearance that he was accused of using a cast taken directly from a living model. Rodin revolutionized sculpture by emphasizing the expressivity of shape, feeling and sensuality, as attested by Le Baiser, made in 1886 and shown on the stamp.

150th ANNIVERSARY OF GUSTAV MAHLER’S BIRTH
Gustav Mahler was born in Kaliste, Bohemia, in 1860 and died in Vienna in 1911. He entered the Vienna Conservatoire at the age of 15. There, he discovered Wagner’s music, which profoundly influenced his work. Best known at the time as a conductor, Mahler is famous today as a composer with a pivotal role between the Romantic and Modern periods. He wrote 10 symphonies, the last one remaining unfinished.

170th ANNIVERSARY OF CLAUDE MONET’S BIRTH
Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and died in Giverny in 1926; with Renoir, Sisley and Bazille, he was one of the founders of Impressionism, a movement that owes its name to one of his works, Impression, Soleil Levant. The work on the stamp, Monte Carlo vu de Roquebrune, was painted in 1884 and can be seen today in the United States at the Portland Museum of Art, Maine.