This is one of several posters created by Henri van der Velde for the Tropon Werke, a Berlin food manufacturer, where he became the director of advertising and graphic design in 1898. (The Belgian-born designer became well-known as the founder of the German Werkbund, a German artists’ association, in 1902.) This small version of the poster was published on the plate facing p. 62 of the German periodical Pan, vol. IV, no. 1 (April-May-June-1898). In it, Van Der Velde promotes the company’s rather mundane product, an egg-white-based protein, with an elegant Art Nouveau design suggesting the shapes and colors of egg whites and yolks. Proton was one of many industrially processed foods that began to transform the modern European kitchen in the late 19th century.