# The Chocolate Girl

The Chocolate Girl (French: La Belle Chocolatière, German: Das Schokoladenmädchen) is one of the most prominent pastels of the Genevan artist Jean-Étienne Liotard, showing a maid serving drinking chocolate. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. The girl carries a tray with a porcelain chocolate cup of the trembleuse type, on a "galleried" silver saucer, and a glass of water. Liotard's contemporaries classed The Chocolate Girl as his masterpiece.
Though normally described as a "maid", it is possible that the model was a banker's daughter from Vienna, Charlotte or Nannerl Baldauf, later Countess Drietrichstein. The back of an 18th-century reduced copy in Orleans House near London has an old label saying: "Portrait of Charlotte Baldauf. Drawn by Liotard during his stay at the house of Mr Baldauf, banker of Vienna. Charlotte Baldauf became Countess Drietrichstein. From the collection of Lord Taunton (E.Labouchere)", who received his peerage in 1859, and died in 1869.

## Details

Theories concerning the girl's headdress run from a cap cover to an echo of the colorful regional caps. The girl's apron features a small bodice. The cup in which the chocolate is served is a trembleuse, supposedly used by people with shaking hands to avoid spilling, but in the 18th century strongly associated with drinking chocolate, then brewed rather strong and frothy. Vienna porcelain was perhaps the largest producers of trembleuse cups in the 18th century. Around the saucer is some beige material, perhaps food or a napkin.

## Provenance

On 3 February 1745 the Italian writer and art collector Francesco Algarotti purchased the painting directly from Liotard in Venice. In an unknown year (between 1747 and 1754?) the picture became part of the collection of August III of Poland. In a letter dated 13 February 1751 to his friend Pierre-Jean Mariette he wrote:
   I have bought a pastel picture about three feet high by the celebrated Liotard. It shows a young German chambermaid in profile, carrying a tray with a glass of water and a cup of chocolate. The picture is almost devoid of shadows, with a pale background, the light being furnished by two windows reflected in the glass. It is painted in half-tones with imperceptible graduations of light and with a perfect modelling...and although it is a European picture it could appeal to the Chinese who, as you know, are sworn enemies of shadows. With regard to the perfection of the work, it is a Holbein in pastel.
Since 1855 the picture has been in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.
During World War II the Germans transported it to Königstein Fortress. The delicate pastel managed to survive the cold and damp there and was brought back to Dresden after the Germans retreated from advancing Soviet troops. After World War II, the painting was briefly in possession of the Soviet Union.

## Use in marketing

In 1862 the American Baker's Chocolate Company obtained the rights to use the pastel.
Around 1900, La Belle Chocolatière served as inspiration for the commercial illustration of the "nurse" that appeared on Droste's cocoa tins. This was most probably a work of the commercial artist Jan (Johannes) Misset. According to Droste, "The illustration indicated the wholesome effect of chocolate milk and became inextricably bound with the name Droste."