Tropon: Protein Food

Original Language TitleTropon: Eiweiss Nahrung

Artist Henry van de Velde (Belgian, 1863 - 1957)

Date1898

MediumFour-color lithograph

DimensionsOverall: 14 1/2 × 10 7/8 inches (36.83 × 27.61 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: Nelson Gallery Foundation

Object numberF86-18

SignedSigned in plate at lower right with artist monogram.

InscribedInscribed at lower left: HENRI VAN DE VELDE, PLAKAT PAN IV 1. / ORIGINALLITHOGRAPHIE IN VIER FARBEN

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Thirty Years of Print Purchases for the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 19–December 31, 1989, no. 51.

Art on the Avenues: Posters from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 16–July 28, 1996, no. 25, as Tropon.

Art of Advertising, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 22–July 17, 2011, no cat., as Tropon.

Reflections of Nature: Monet’s Water Lilies and Art Nouveau, part of the series Monet in Conversation, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 2, 2026–May 2, 2027, no cat.

Gallery Label

In 1898, interior designer Henry van de Velde was commissioned to create an advertisement for Tropon, an egg-based protein. Perhaps the repeating forms and whiplash curves imply cracked eggs dripping down and morphing into the white powder supplement. While visually appealing, the artist’s abstract design obscures the function of the product. Claude Monet, too, reduced his water lily pond to a meditation on color and only hinted at the blooms themselves.

Provenance

With Lords Gallery, Ltd., London, by May 19, 1986;

Purchased from Lords Gallery by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1986.

Published References

Pan 4, no. 1 (April/May/June 1898): between 62–63.

Thirty Years of Print Purchases for the Permanent Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1989), 9, 11.

Art on the Avenues: Posters from the Permanent Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 7–8, as Tropon.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460–1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 277, (repro.), as Tropon.

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