1:35 Konev na mléko

A vessel every farm knew

The sheet metal milk can accompanied the countryside from the end of the nineteenth century deep into the postwar years. In the morning it was filled at the milking, traveled on a hay wagon or a handcart to the road and waited there to be collected for the dairy; in the afternoon it came back empty the same way. It therefore turns up in places where nobody would expect a farm: at the roadside, on a railway platform, propped against the wall of an inn or loaded on the bed of a wagon the army had requisitioned.

The package offers three pieces, so a whole group is formed. Several containers together look more natural than a single lone one and at the same time allow a small story: two stand ready by the road, the third lies overturned in a ditch after a tracked vehicle went past.

Color treatment

Milk cans were made of tinned steel sheet as well as of aluminum, and after a few seasons of use they had nothing in common with the shine of new goods. A muted light gray base works well, over it a thin layer of ingrained dirt in the recesses and finally fine chipping on the edges of the lid and on the hoops at the bottom, where the can rested on paving.

The top tends to be darker from the touch of hands, while the bottom carries dried mud from the field track. A drop of gloss varnish at the rim suggests spilled liquid and ties the object to its base so that it does not look merely set on top. The three pieces can also be lined up along a wall, where they create a natural line leading the viewer deeper into the scene. Turning the lids differently is enough to keep the pieces from looking like a repeated molding.