Signed photograph album, memento of the visit to China by the Soviet delegation. 1954

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976). Signed photo album, memento of the visit to China by the Soviet delegation led by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. [China, 1954].

A unique diplomatic presentation object: Mao’s signed token of personal regard for the Russian Marshal Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (1895-1975), Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955–1958). Thirty-two photographs document the State visit by the Soviet delegation led by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, to mark the five-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The images include, among the Chinese dignitaries, Liu Shaotsi, Zhou Enlai and, in great prominence, Mao Zedong himself. Nikolai Bulganin, to whom Mao gifted this album, also features, in his Marshal’s uniform. The first 23 photographs immortalize the most momentous episodes of the visit: leaders’ hand-shakes, joined pronouncements, ceremonial signing, but also more informal moments of encounter between leaders who, by Khrushchev’s own account, did not see eye to eye personally and ideologically. Diplomacy of the kind evidenced in this album, however, allowed the heads of State to forge ties and repair relations to the extent that by the following year sixty percent of the People’s Republic of China’s exports went to Russia. The final nine photographs portray scenes from Chinese theatratical costume performances witnessed by their Soviet guests.

Oblong folio (285 x 350mm), 32 printed photographs (230 x 282mm; 190 x 260mm; 190 x 192mm) preceded by a gilt-printed dedication leaf in Cyrillic signed by Mao, the photographs mounted on black card, each with tissue guards. Original full red leather, leather tie to spine, upper cover with central red-lacquered gilt boss showing the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City and the five stars of China; preserved in the original red cloth case with gilt-lettered leather panel on front cover. Provenance: Mao Zedong (ink signature on dedication leaf to:) – Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (dedication).

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