France issued its first postal stamps on 1 January 1849: 20c Cérès Black and 1F Cérès Red. The design featured Cérès, the goddess of agriculture, instead of a monarch as France was a republic (Second Republic) at the time and largely an agricultural society. Cérès has wheat sheaves, olives and grapes adorning her hair. “REPUB FRANC” is inscribed at the top border. Simple decoration on vertical borders. Postal value printed on the bottom border.
The 20c Ceres Black is also fondly known as French Penny Black as it resembles the British stamp.
The stamp marked the start of postal reforms that were implemented in Britain, and the prepaid postage helped provide uniform rates across France, Algeria and Corsica.
As it was difficult to detect a black cancellation, these stamps had a tendency to be reused. The 20c Cérès black was supposed to be replaced with 20c Cérès blue in the subsequent year, but it was never used due to rate changes.
On 21 November 1852 Napoleon III was declared Emperor and stamps depicting Napoleon’s head replaced the Ceres head.
After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, new Ceres stamps were printed by the provisional government at Bordeaux.
After the Third Republic was announced, in September 1870, and France returned to a peacetime, thirteen colours and values of Ceres were printed until 1875.
The Jacques-Jean Barre's Ceres effigy had appeared again on stamps in 1948, 1949 and 1999 commemorating the philatelic and postal history of France.
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