Children's Home Souvenir Spoon 1893

This souvenir spoon, crafted by the Alvin Rol-Ruler Company, features the Children's Home. The image shows an architectural structure, symbolizing stability and hope, and a matriarchal figure, possibly representing care and guidance, motifs interwoven with floral elements, emblematic of growth. Notice how the spoon is not merely utilitarian but laden with symbols—the building as a haven, the woman as a guardian. These echo motifs found in reliquaries from the Medieval period. In the reliquaries, saints and the divine serve as protectors and anchors, offering solace and representing higher powers. The building on the spoon symbolizes refuge and echoes a need for safety and belonging that transcends time. The depiction of a Children’s Home, coupled with a maternal figure, evokes potent emotions tied to our earliest experiences of nurture. Just like the ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’ shows the recurrence of gestures to express grief, hope, and other states, these symbols continue to evolve and reappear, shaping our cultural memory.