1924 CHINESE CLOISONNE. Rare Child Orphanage Labor Made Cloisonne Jar. Yangjiang.

A beautifully preserved 1924 cloisonne lidded jar created by the children at the Sicawei Ophanage in Shanghai, China. Ironically, this was the same year Congress adopted an amendment banning child labor. 

The present was evidently presented to Rev. M. J. Horan by Father Robert J. Cairns [1884-1941], having been made for Horan by the craftschildren at the Sicawei Orphanage for the occasion of his visit. Cairns was later Priest at Sancian Island, but while visiting Hong Kong was taken prisoner by the Japanese in 1941 and then reputedly brutally murdered. 

We trace no other crafts or productions connected physically to the orphanage, though the quality of the work implies there must be others. Perhaps they were not usually labeled, but only as this was a gift rather than produced for a local manufacturer, etc. There was apparently a movement of "workhouse-orphanages" across China during the period. [See Maura Elizabeth Cunningham's Shanghai's Wandering Ones. Child Welfare in a Global City, 1900-1953]. 

Measures 3 1/8 in height and 3 5/8 in width, with a variety of Christian and Chinese symbols and imagery around the entirety.