Czeslaw Slania (pronounced Chess-wav Swan-ya) was born in Silesia, Poland in 1921. He entered the Cracow School of Fine Arts in 1945. Employed by the Polish Government Printing Works, Slania engraved his first stamp for Poland in 1951. He came to Sweden in 1959, and engraved a stamp for Sweden in 1959. Slania formally joined the Swedish Postal Service as a full time engraver in 1960. Since then, he has been appointed Royal Court Engraver in Sweden, Denmark and Monaco, and won numerous awards for both the beauty, speed and proliferation of his engravings. Because of the number of items he has engraved and their beauty, Czeslaw Slania is the world's most famous engraver.
     The souvenir sheet is thousandth engraved postage stamp by Slania. The design is based on “The Great Deeds by Swedish Kings,” by David Klöcher von Ehrenstrahl (1628-1698), painted in 1695. The original is in the Drottingholm Palace in Stockholm.

Slania also engraved eight stamps for the United States.

Princess of Monaco, Actress

Secretary of State

Surrender of Gen. John Burgoyne ~ 1777
John Trumbull, 1824