Jean-Étienne Liotard had gone to Vienna in 1742 to paint the portraits of the imperial family, and in 1745 sells La belle chocolatière (The Chocolate Girl) to Francesco Algarotti.
Classified by Liotard’s contemporaries as his masterpiece, the pastel shows a girl carrying a tray with a porcelain chocolate mug and a glass of water.
Liotard, whose father was a jeweler who had fled France for Switzerland after 1685, was born at Geneva and began his studies under Professors Gardelle and Petitot, whose enamels and miniatures he copied with considerable skill.
He had gone to Paris in 1725, studying under Jean-Baptiste Massé and François Lemoyne, on whose recommendation he had been taken to Naples by the Marquis Puysieux.
He was in Rome in 1735, painting the portraits of Pope Clement XII and several cardinals.
Three years later, he accompanied Lord Duncannon to Constantinople, where his eccentric adoption of oriental costume had secured him the nickname of the Turkish painter.
