This large vase is shaped like an iconic old milk can. In the first half of the 20th century, it was a typical image of the farming identity of the Netherlands. The landscape was dotted with small farms where milking was a daily busy activity. The dairy farmers placed their iron milk cans in groups along the roadside, where they were picked up by carts to be taken to the dairy factory. Sometimes the milk was already sour before it reached the factory, and occasionally a drowned kitten was found in it, having tried to sneak some milk. The idyllic image of weathered steel milk cans at the entrance of the farmyard disappeared rapidly from 1962 onwards, when the refrigerated milk tank began its rise. Only in one village in the Netherlands were the original milk cans still in use until 1999, until this dairy factory also stopped accepting milk in cans.