During the early seventeenth century, Dutch potters produced brightly coloured tin-glazed earthenware for the local market. The technology to make this type of ceramics had been imported from Italy via Antwerp during the sixteenth century. Initially, Italian Renaissance motifs were copied in the north, but gradually local styles and subjects appeared. This small dish depicts a milkmaid carrying a yoke with two pails of milk. This was a popular type of decoration on ceramics which must have alluded to healthy abundance. During the first half of the seventeenth century this type of colourful tableware was used alongside the much more expensive blue and white imports from China.