The stamp is designed after a painting made by the well-known French marine artist Roger Chapelet. Who states that he chose the name ESMERALDA for his painting because it was a pleasant name to hear.
He had learned of her while he was sailing on the Newfoundland Grand Banks in the 1930s but never saw her.
The stamp gives “3 masts goelette ESMERALDA”, while goelette translated from French is a schooner, is she showed on the stamp rigged as a barkentine and typical rigged of the French fisherman fishing on the Grand Banks after World War I.
Dahomey 1967 45fr sg285, scottC52.
Source: Log Book 15/67