At breakfast, an elegantly dressed woman watches a little girl dip a biscuit into milky coffee. The girl wears paper curlers in her hair. Coffee and chocolate were exclusive and costly beverages in the eighteenth century; the porcelain and silverware they use were no less luxurious.
As well as capturing this tender moment, Liotard lavishes attention on the still-life elements. He uses a build-up of thick, wet pastel to create dimensional reflections on the silver coffee pot and Chinese porcelain, whose glossy surfaces are in turn reflected in the lacquer tray. A minute signature and date – Liotard / a lion / 1754 (‘Liotard / in Lyon / 1754’) – are found on the sheet music that pokes out from the open drawer.
Although this picture is not strictly a portrait, its sitters have long been associated with the Lavergne family, relatives of Liotard’s who lived in Lyon.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in ‘National Gallery Catalogues: Online Entries’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
S. Koja and R. Enke (eds), 'The most beautiful pastel ever seen': The Chocolate Girl by Jean-Étienne Liotard (exh. cat. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, 28 September 2018 - 6 January 2019), Munich 2018
N. Jeffares, Treatise & Other Historical Texts Related to Pastels & Pastellists, online edn, n.p. 2023, http://www.pastellists.com/Misc/Treatises.pdf
This eighteenth-century French ‘pastel frame’ is carved from oak wood and water-gilt. The frame boasts a straight-edged design with ‘Duc d’Orléans’ reeding at the top. The back edge is decorated with a leaf-and-tip design. The reverse ogee moulding leads to a sanded flat. The sight edge has a French acanthus-leaf motif.
This frame was fitted to Liotard’s The Lavergne Family Breakfast in 2022.
During the reign of Louis XV, pastel portraits gained immense popularity in Paris, leading to the creation of the ‘pastel frame’, specifically designed for works on paper. These frames were typically linear and featured shallow rebates to securely hold the artwork.
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
