Binnenbak van een botervloot c. 1900

This is the inner container of a butter dish, made by Orivit, a German metalwork company. Objects like this, so commonplace, can reveal a lot about the social and cultural life of a period. Mass-produced items like this butter dish offered a vision of modernity that suggested a certain lifestyle, and a particular vision of domesticity. Here, in this plain glass bowl, we see the intersection of industry, gender, and class. Who was setting the table, and for whom? Whose labor produced this object? What was it like to want such an object? The rise of consumer culture changed the dynamics of everyday life, and the emotional experience of the domestic sphere.