These two shoulder yokes were designed to make the carrying of full buckets easier on the arms and hands, by spreading the weight across the shoulders of the carrier and suspending the buckets on chains. In the days before mains water supplies and milking machines, the two liquids most likely to be carried in buckets were water and milk – water from the outside pump or well into the house, and milk from beneath the hand milked cow into the dairy. Provided the two buckets were filled equally, it was a stable and comfortable way of moving buckets around. The painting shows how a yoke was carried.