Advertising, Manufacturing, Cow as a Butter Making Machine, Vintage Poster, Austria, c. 1930

Thea Margarine Poster: Von Der Pflanze Zum Nährfett
[From Plant into Fat Nutrient]
Kunerolwerke, Vienna: c. 1930
Color-process poster
26.25 x 38.5 inches
$875

An interesting scientific poster produced by an Austrian company to promote Thea brand margarine, with a cow portrayed as a food processing machine. In the center is a coconut palm and grass, converting energy from the sun into carbon, oxygen and protein. On either side are two cow silhouettes, the left one representing how coconut is processed directly “from the plant, straight through the machine,” the right one showing how plants go “on a detour through the animal,” ending up as milk. The bottom section of the diagram shows some of the milk being processed into butter and the rest being added to the margarine product. The underlying message seems to be that this factory-made product is both scientifically sound and reassuringly natural, by depicting the cow as a machine for making milk and the machine as analogous to a cow.

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