Description:
One of a pair of a Dutch Delftware milking group (unmarked) with naturalistically molded standing cows with a man and a woman milker decorated in unfired colors of red, blue, brown, olive-green, black and gilding, all set on a raised rectangular base with molded forms such as a branch and frog on the black-painted top and chamfered corners. Although much of the floral decoration has been rubbed off the cows, these figures were decorated with unfired oil based colors and gilding. Unlike the lengthy and expensive process of the grand feu (high temperature) and petit feu (low temperature) colors, the cold painted wares were not fired after they were painted and therefore more economical. Several factories tried this technique, but the new method was met with resistance. The cold painted process required less work for the factory painters because the painting was executed by “kladschilders,” artists working with oil-paint. It is extremely rare to find a pair of milking groups like the present pair that are completely decorated in the cold paint technique. Their rarity can partly be explained because of the popularity of white Delftware at the beginning of the twentieth century, whose scarce fragments of cold painted decorated were removed.. The flower wreaths and garlands aournd their necks and backs can be related to the 17th century 'guild oxen.' Once a year, on the day of its patron saint, Saint Luke, the Butcher's Guild would hold a parade celebrating the best-bred bull or cow from their guild festival at Delft where the animal decorated with flower wreaths and ribbons, its horn guilded and sometimes tipped with oranges, were led in procession around the streets joined by musicians. The meat of the animal went to the subsequent guild dinner, and a portion was distributed to the poor. Even after the parading of the 'guild-ox' was discontinued by the guild, butchers themselves kept up the tradition as a form advertisement, especially when they had bought a particularly large or fat animal. Both the man and woman are seated on stools, the man on the left side of his cow and the woman on the right side of her cow, each holding a pail under the cow in front of the red and brown painted udders. The man is wearing a black tricorn hat, tan waistcoat, white shirt and olive-green knee britches; the woman is wearing a hat decorated with flowers, tan top, black apron, and white skirt with flowers. There is a large vent hole where the anus would be on each cow.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.343 |
