The area began growing rapidly in the 1860s. In 1864, Yu Ying Tang Orphanage was shifted there from suburban Qingpu District. Yu Ying Tang had been established in 1855 by French missionaries for boys between six and 10 years old.

"At the beginning, besides basic knowledge, the orphans were taught some simple living skills such as sewing and agriculture so they could make an independent living," says Zhang Hua, former vice director of the research department of the Shanghai United Front Work Department.

The classes were divided into three grades and covered four years, generally taught by missionaries. Talented students took another one-year course in painting.

Soon the missionaries realized that in Shanghai it was difficult to find the arts and crafts needed by churches, such as stained glass and embroidered altar cloths, hangings and vestments.

In the 1860s they set up the Institute of Art and Crafts in the orphanage to produce artwork. The orphans, originally 100, became apprentices and later craftsmen and artists.

The institute contained specialized workshops for painting (watercolors and oils) and drawing, sculpture, printing, wood-carving, metal work, photography and other arts.

T'ou-Se-We was the birthplace of many new technologies and new arts and crafts in China, including Western oil painting, mosaic, stained glass, and lithography.

Missionaries from Italy, Spain, France and Portugal brought Western cultural influences, and Western and Chinese arts met at the institute. It was founded half a century before the first modern schools of fine arts established in China after 1910.

The works of its students are exhibited in churches all over the world and owned by private collectors.

Cultural authorities plan to convert the old school building to a museum and display works from all over the world.

Spanish missionary Joannes Ferrer (1817-56) and Italian missionary Nicolas Massa (1815-76) established the T'ou-Se-We Painting School. They brought Western paintings into China, and taught many young people who went on to become successful artists and teachers in T'ou-Se-We.

Famous local painter Ye Zhaocheng was the last student of Father Yu Kai in T'ou-Se-We Painting School. Ye still preserves a painting of Father Yu, whom he remembers as very talented and serious.

"He never praised my work in front of me. But later, I found that my achievements came from the good basics formed in T'ou-Se-We," Ye recalls.

Other distinguished painters graduating from T'ou-Se-We Painting School included Ren Bonian (1840-96), Liu Haisu (1896-1994) and Xu Beihong (1895-1953).

(Shanghai Daily July 8,2008)