May 16, 2024 - Sale 2669

Sale 2669 - Lot 129

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(SOUTH KOREA)
An official gifted album from the first President of South Korea to an American advisor, with more than 125 photographs.
A gift from Syngman Rhee, the first president of South Korea to one of his American advisors, Robert T. Oliver, a linguistics professor from the University of Pennsylvania, with a dedication page in the back which reads "Dedicated with affection and respect to Prof. Robert T. Oliver." Signed by Kyung Wee Yeen, Chief Custodian, Office of the former Imperial Household, Republic of Korea (both in English and Korean). The album opens with a large image of the royal household prior to Japanese occupation, which is followed by more than 100 images of royal temples and homes of prior emperors. The last two pages are of photographs of each of the prior emperor's handwriting. Silver prints, most of the images measuring 4¼x6 inches (10.8x15.2 cm.), and slightly smaller, and the reverse, the sheets slightly larger, cornered to the pages recto/verso, each with Korean and English caption labels, some typed and some in ink; two photographs laid in, both mounted, credited to Bachrach of Washington, one depicting the President and Professor Oliver at a formal affair. 4to, red leatherette covers, front cover detached; plastic spiral binding. Circa 1949

Dr. Oliver studied Korea, and was a close friend and associate of Syngman Rhee, serving as his advisor, and to the Korean Commission and the Korean Delegation to the United Nations. According to Robert Shuter, "For over sixty years, Dr. Oliver wrote prolifically about the impact of culture on rhetoric and communication. Although Dr. Oliver rarely used the words intercultural communication in his writings, which were voluminous, he contributed greatly to the development of the field." He stated that "Dr. Oliver's landmark Asian research, which began around 1942, influenced a generation of communication researchers in many specialties including intercultural communication."