In its sober and precise observation it reflects the art of the Enlightenment as well as anticipating the realism of the nineteenth century. The Chocolate Girl shows a simple, unknown domestic servant, until then a rarely chosen subject. Even during Liotard’s life (1702 – 1789), his pastel painting was highly valued, as the description by the most famous pastel artist Rosalba Carriera as “the most beautiful pastel” demonstrates.
The painting had a tremendous effect in those days, and still does so today. It also explains the art of pastel painting, in which this enchanting work has been executed. This richly illustrated volume leads the reader through the age in which it was created during the French-inspired Rococo and into the Vienna of Empress Maria Theresia, where the work was painted. This catalogue brings together texts by renowned scholars as they explore not only the restoration of this pivotal work but also fundamental questions on the visual vernacular and essence of Vermeer's painting, his optical realism, his iconography of love, and the lived realities of women in the Dutch Golden Age.The Chocolate Girl is one of the most famous works by the Swiss artist Jean-Étienne Liotard. To showcase the discovery, the Dresden Gemaldegalerie is now presenting the Girl Reading a Letter along with other masterpieces by Vermeer and a selection of exceptional Dutch genre paintings that reveal parallels and reciprocities between the art of Vermeer and that of his peers. The removal of a large section of overpainting dating from a later period has profoundly altered the work's appearance and revealed the original composition.
Preserved at the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, the painting has been restored, in an elaborate process lasting from 2017 to 2021. The Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window by Johannes Vermeer is one of the most famous works of seventeenth-century Dutch art.
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