Beschreibung:

Melbourne Invitation Committee for OLYMPIC GAMES 1956 PRESENTATION VOLUME, facsimile letters by Winston Dugan (Governor of Victoria), T.T.Holloway (Premier of Victoria), F.R.Connelly (Lord Mayor of Melbourne), with impressed gold foil and red paper wafer seals, 4 folding plates at the end, including 3 coloured, depicting proposed Olympic arenas, 63 plates exhibiting Melbourne and Victoria's landscape, scenery, people, art and architecture (one page repaired), Merino lambs's wool binding by Spicers & Detmold, upper cover with large applied enamelled crest painted in colours, folio, 34.7 x 27 cm., Melbourne 1948 ONE OF A VERY FEW COPIES SPECIALLY BOUND IN FINE MERINO LAMBS WOOL FOR PRESENTATION. PROBABLY SIR FRANK BEAUREPAIRE'S COPY, loosely inserted are his FOUR-PAGE PENCIL NOTES on Baron Pierre de Coubertin and the Olympic ideal. This copy is said to have been taken by him to the International Olympic Committee session in Rome in April 1949, where, after verbal presentations, the Melbourne group (which also included the Lord Mayor, Sir James Disney, the Australian Olympic Federation chairman, Harold Alderson, and Victoria's agent-general in London, Sir Norman Martin) showed a promotion film which featured the city, its scenery and attractions. THE PRESENT COPY INCLUDES TWO HAND-PAINTED TIPPED-IN LEAVES AT THE FRONT LETTERED AS THE TITLE AND CREDITS OF A MOVIE FILM Olympic Invitation, produced by Herschells Film Studios, Melbourne, Directed by Roy A.Driver...Vistone Recording. Copies of the book, mostly bound in suede, with a very few in lamb's wool, were sent out in 1948 to all IOC members, sporting bodies, royaly and politicians, as part of the Melbourne Committee's concerted plan of action for wooing the IOC to award Melbourne the 1956 Olympics. All members of the IOC also recieved a range of the best Australian wines. The Rome session was crucial 'with Beaurepaire commanding particular attention as a man who had been to every Games since his day as a competitor. His lobbying...was magnificent'. Then came the promotions film. Five candidates had registered for the Games; Buenos Aires, Detroit, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Mexico City, followed later by Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Chicago. After the preliminary rounds Melbourne faced Buenos Aires in the final ballot. With one vote to be counted the score was 20 votes each, making it the closest such vote ever. It was later reported that the deciding vote was cast by a delegate from the Phillipines. See, Harry Gordon, Australia and the Olympic Games pp.193-201, see illustration