MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976). Signed photo album presented to Semyon Mikhailovich Budenny, Marshal of the Soviet Union. [China, 1950s, after 1952].

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976). Signed photo album presented to Semyon Mikhailovich Budenny, Marshal of the Soviet Union. [China, 1950s, after 1952].

22 printed photographs (157 x 117mm), the first a portrait photograph signed by Mao, all mounted on cream damask silk-covered boards, each with captions in Mandarin and Russian on paper strips pasted on verso, preserved in a fine silk-covered box (250 x 203 x 39mm) embroidered in blue, yellow, green and pink, round engraved centrepiece to cover, ties with tags, blue silk lining with fabric black-and-white portrait of Mao applied to one side and calligraphic dedication in Cyrillic painted on the other (corners a little rubbed).

A unique diplomatic presentation object: Mao’s signed token of personal regard for the Russian Marshal Semyon Mikhailovich Budenny (1883–1973). An embroidered silk box with a large engraved medallion and a painted calligraphic dedication provides an exquisite receptacle for twenty-two photographs, twenty-one of which celebrate horses, their relationship with people, their sport performance, and all aspects of horse-breeding.

The dedicatee was a Bolshevik cavalry commander of great fame, who shone during the Russian Revolution and by the end of the Civil War was one of Soviet Russia's military heroes – the subject of D. Yakovlevich’s very popular Soviet song ‘Budenny’s March’. Budenny was a renowned horse breeder – indeed, in the 1920s he had created a breed (to this day named after him, and still abundant in Russia) notable for its high endurance and sport prowess, with the purpose of keeping the cavalry well mounted despite losses. It became the standard horse breed of Russian cavalry divisions during World War II and after. In the years surrounding the presentation of this gift (one photograph refers to an event of October 1952), Budenny was Deputy Minister of Agriculture on horse breeding. Starting from May 1953 and until September 1954 he was the cavalry inspector.

One of the photograph captions decisively frames this gift within the specific political milieu of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance signed by Mao and Stalin in 1950: ‘The great friendly country, the Soviet Union, in view of assisting our country in developing horse breeding, sent to China his horse breeding specialists, who … share their practical and technical experience. In the picture: a Soviet specialist works happily with our technicians’. Other photographs show cross-breeding, including ‘purebred horses, introduced from the Soviet Union’, an old stableman receiving an award in from the Ministry of Agricultural Economy, scientific methods applied to the growing of feeding grasses, the People’s Liberation Army rehearsing a charge (‘They defend peace in the Far East and in the whole world’), the large, solemn nomad assembly of Natamo, and a variety of sports scenes, including polo, horseracing performed by women, children riding prowess, Mongol horsemen choosing their mounts, acrobatic skills, Chinese Army Cavalry riding displays. It is known that Mao deplored and in 1949 forbad horseracing in civil society, as indissolubly connected to gambling. This carefully-selected series of pictures, as well as marking a moment of diplomatic and perhaps, to some extent, personal regard, stands as an eloquent witness of a fervent keenness for horse-related disciplines, which was continually fostered in all parts of China.