The five colones note bank that was printed in early 1970´s is one of the most beautiful bills from Costa Rica.
It´s a copy of a painting shown in the sealing of the elegant Foyer at the National Theatre of Costa Rica, painted by ¨J. Villa¨ -as shown on the bill- or Aleandro Villa –as shown on the list of painters from the Theatre- one the Italian artists that were hired for the elaboration of the paintings in the building. This building was inaugurated in October 21th 1897.
This art piece in the Foyer sealing represents much of the economy, culture and ethnic diversity that were happening during late 19th century in Costa Rica.
The ladies at the right side are harvesting ripe coffee cherries and carrying it on a handmade basket done out of woody vines from local species in the Bignoniaceae family, nowadays is very difficult to find these original baskets because these vines are now found only in protected areas where is absolutely forbidden to collect anything from Mineral, Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms, so the actual coffee pickers use plastic ones.

It´s interesting to observe how the ladies were idealized in this painting using European dresses, which remind us about ladies harvesting grapes in Italy. Such dresses do exist in our folklore, these long, colorful and heavy skirts are part of our folkloric dances, a very obvious influence of Spain´s festivity traditions that we inherit, but in order to really understand the circumstances that prevailed during that time -and even now days- people never go to work in agriculture using elegant but uncomfortable cloth, especially in the tropics where the sun and heat may be very intense, so this is not very accurate, but quite understandable considering the context in which the painting was done; the construction of the National Theatre which represents in the popular idiosyncrasy, a national identity and proud, and coffee plays a very important role in this, because times before coffee production started, Costa Rica was very poor, and had a minimum international trade that was not enough to really help improve the economy, after coffee was introduced –coffee is native to Ethiopia- international trade flourished activating the economy, therefore during those days coffee was of course the main topic to talk about and center of practically all economical activity directly or indirectly related to.

Another interesting detail to mention is that you won´t find coffee growing at sea level in Costa Rica, but this was only way to show coffee and bananas in the same picture.
About bananas, the ocean and ethnic diversity, during 1890´s the railroad that links the coffee lands with the recently built Port of Limon in the Caribbean, was already working and Costa Rica was finally able to export it´s coffee directly to Europe. In order to build the railroad, Italians, Chinese and finally Jamaican workers were brought, the first two human groups failed in the job due to extremely difficult weather and ecological conditions, where yellow fever, malaria and deadly poisonous snakes were abundant, while Jamaicans did adapt because of similar environmental conditions of their original home. That´s why an Afro descendent man is carrying the bunch of bananas in the picture, it represents not only the Jamaicans that built the railroad but the ones that later were going to produce bananas.
Minor C Keith got the contract to build the railroad; such infrastructure was very expensive for the young Costa Rica and knew that selling bananas was going to be a good business, so part of the deal was Keith getting a certain amount of land for him to grow bananas, the business was so successful that Keith founded the United Fruit Company, or Chiquita Banana.
An interesting detail is  the way the man carries the banana bunch, is the worst possible, trying to handle the bunch that way is very difficult and some of the bananas may tear of quickly even though they are still green and hard, and the bunch´s weight is going to unbalance you, an average banana bunch may be 80 and 125 pounds (35 to 50 kilograms), so if you´re going to carry one, better to use one of your shoulders to support it since first moment in order to keep the balance for walking, and actually you will need the help of a second person in order to make the bunch reach your shoulder so it´s normally a two persons team to collect and carry a banana bunch.
As you look carefully you will find several flags in the ships that look like French flags but the color lines are horizontal instead of vertical, so they look like costarrican flags, but the costarrican flag has four color lines, while these other flags have only three. At least one well defined French flag is present in the picture, and this is a strong evidence of the admiration that the liberal costarrican government of the time had for the French culture.
As mentioned before, the original painting is at the sealing of the foyer at the National Theatre in San José, and it can be observed while you visit the Theater any moment during the day.