(Swiss, 1702-1789)

Girl with Chocolate Pot, an early and well painted copy after the pastel held by the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, inscribed verso canvas "M. R. Siegling Charleston, S.C./America", unsigned, oil on canvas, 34-1/4 x 22-1/2 in.; Gilt wood and composition frame, Dresden label, 45 x 33-3/4 x 3 in.

Provenance: Marie Regina Siegling (1824-1920), an American composer, m. 1850 to Eduard Schuman LeClercq; Dr. Frederic Schuman Le Clercq; Honore Le Clercq; Private Collection, Charleston, South Carolina

Note: According to Neil Jeffares, "the original Liotard pastel appears in my online Dictionary at J.49.1342 (the sequence determined by the name, Countess Dietrichstein, by which the unidentifiable girl was once (falsely) known), followed by many dozen copies in pastel, oil and every other possible medium you can think of. Normally I list all copies of pastels but the task here is impossible. While in Dresden it was a set piece for students to copy, many to a very high standard. Since Liotard never visited Dresden and parted with the work early in his career, it is my view that only the original pastel itself is autograph and every other version, and all oils, are copies."