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China: A disturbing image from 'Shanghai Manhua' (Shanghai Sketch) entitled 'Human Meat Market'. Lu Shaofei, January 1929

China: A disturbing image from 'Shanghai Manhua' (Shanghai Sketch) entitled 'Human Meat Market'. Lu Shaofei, January 1929

A female brothel keeper butchers young women and sells the body parts to passing men. Social comment on the prevalence of prostitution in Old Shanghai.

The pictorial 'Shanghai Manhua' (Shanghai Sketch), published between April 21, 1928 and June 7, 1930, was a mixture of drawings, photographs and images ranging from advertisements to social criticism and political caricatures.

Shanghai Manhua was an outlet for professional cartoonists and sketch masters, generally of an avant garde or progressive nature. Many of the images printed in 'Shanghai Manhua' are observations of urban life in contemporaneous Shanghai, as well as often critical comment on the social mores of the time.

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