Post #3167339

2026-06-07 11:20 UTC

The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome. "The Milkmaid’, one of Johannes Vermeer's most famous pieces, depicts a scene of a woman quietly pouring milk into a bowl. During a survey the Rijksmuseum discovered that there were over 10,000 copies of the image on the internet—mostly poor, yellowish reproductions. As a result of all of these low-quality copies on the web, according to the Rijksmuseum, “people simply didn’t believe the postcards in our museum shop were showing the original painting. This was the trigger for us to put high-resolution images of the original work with open metadata on the web ourselves. Opening up our data is our best defence against the ‘yellow Milkmaid’." https://pro.europeana.eu/post/the-problem-of-the-yellow-milkmaid #art #collections #museum #openmuseum

Replies (7)

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re 2026-06-07 11:20

See also https://yellowmilkmaidsyndrome.tumblr.com/

Open ##3290794
@Hammerwell@troet.cafe 2026-06-07 15:53

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re Adjacent to this, a medieval filter is often used. Everything has to look old or desolate, or grey or dirty or anything at once. No, our ancestors didn't live like this!

Open ##3290798
@regendans@todon.eu 2026-06-07 17:40

A whitepaper from 2011 that starts with three bit ly weblinks. :blobcatsweat: By the way, here's an image which is likely a genuine one. Fourth image down from the top. : https://www.mauritshuis.nl/ontdek-collectie/onze-meesters/johannes-vermeer

Open ##3290808
@aloxe@mast.eu.org 2026-06-07 19:50

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re I wonder what they could do to fix the false copyright claim that sometimes happen with the same paintings… https://meinamsterdam.nl/retrospective-vermeer-droit-auteur/ (sorry in french) #art #collections #museum #openmuseum #rijksmuseum #louvre

Open ##3290810
@winissen@sfba.social 2026-06-07 20:02

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re I know what you're saying, but of the two images in the this post, I'd take the greater dynamic range of the yellow one on the right any day. The version from mauritshuis.nl that you shared the link to obviously far better than either, to be sure. And very nice to have authoritative versions, especially of paintings that were painted hundreds of years ago and clearly the original artist, the artist's great grandchildren, and anyone remotely connected with the artist being long dead.

Open ##3290811
@cupz@mas.to 2026-06-08 09:02

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re It always struck me how different paintings look in real life compared to digital pictures. Even very high quality ones.

Open ##3290812
@irgendwiejuna@chaos.social 2026-06-08 14:39

@Lignedescience@social.sciences.re Interesting, sometimes they tell the story of the Van Gogh Sunflowers ....

Open ##3290813