A PART PORCELAIN DINNER SERVICE, DULEVO MANUFACTORY, 1952-1962

height of covered tazza on stand: 20cm., 8incomprising: two large tureens, covers and stands, two chargers, a salad bowl, twelve dinner plates, eleven soup bowls, twelve fruit plates, twelve side plates, two gravy-boats, two sugar-bowls one covered, two covered sauce pots and a pair of spice casters, all marked with a hammer and sickle encircled by a sheaf of corn, with gold manufactory markQuantity: 69PROVENANCESoviet Ambassador to Helsinki, circa 1952NOTEThis service would have been made at a crucial time in the post-war development of Russo-Finnish diplomatic and economic relations. The countries were ideologically diverse and yet the consistently friendly foreign policy on the part of the Finns helped establish: the Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between Finland and the USSR in 1948. This was extended in 1955, 1970 and 1983. Trade between the two countries was and continued to be extremely important, especially when reparation payments came to an end in 1950. However the diplomatic relations were not without complications. After the elections of 1958 a Finnish government was formed under the Social Democrat Karl August Fagerholm which included members who were considered to be anti-Soviet. In retalliation the Soviet Union recalled the ambassador, and presumably this Soviet dinner service, until the Finnish governent was reconstructed and relations stabilised.