Photograph of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung and Liu Shaoqi

[Paris]: [Photo Keystone], 1963. Gelatin silver photograph. Signed by Kim Il-Sung and Liu Shaoqi, the two subjects, in ink at their feet. With copyright stamp on the back of Photo Keystone, Paris. 18x13 cm (7" x 5"). Very Good: Kim Il-sung's signature is a little faint but legible, Liu Shaoqi's signature is quite strong. A little toning and curling to photo. Included book is Very Good as well.

A signed photo of two major figures in Asian 20th century politics. Kim Il-sung was the founder of North Korea and grandfather of the present leader of that nation, Kim Jong-un. He was declared the "eternal President of the Republic" in 1998. Liu Shaoqi was a Chinese revolutionary and politician, Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee from 1954 to 1959, First Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1956 to 1966, and Chairman of the People's Republic of China, the de jure head of state, from 1959 to 1968. Cursory research shows that the two met September 5, 1963 Korean Workers' Party Central Committee Office Building and Sept 24th the same year at Moranbong Guest House, Pyongyang; possibly this photo is from one of those meetings. In the photo they are walking in front of a building with a crowd of people behind them, Liu on the left, Kim on the right.

Photo accompanied by a book in Chinese, Xin Zhongguo guan gan ji, by Jiageng Chen, 1950, apparently notes from delegates to a Communist Party meeting about the state of China as they saw it through their travels.

Provenance: the photograph and the book were previously owned by Ian Graham, an oil company engineer in the Middle East (and married to the former owner's grandmother's cousin), and were given to Mr. Graham by veteran Iraqi diplomat Awni Khalidy, whom Graham first met when both were working in London in 1945 and 1946, and remained in touch with when his work took him to Iraq.

Objects signed by Kim, who ruled North Korea from 1948 through the Korean War until his death in 1994, are quite rare.