Talk:The Chocolate Girl
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A fact from The Chocolate Girl appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 18 March 2008. |
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I can't rewrite the tale of love at first sight to make it "true", but the fact seems to be that Johann Baptist Karl Fürst von Dietrichstein zu Nikolsburg, Graf von Proskau (27 Jun 1728-25 May 1808), who had first married (30 Jan 1764) Marie Christine Gräfin von Thun (25 Apr 1738-4 Mar 1788), married secondly, in his widowhood, (23 Jul 1802) Maria Anna Baldauf (2 Dec 1752-25 Feb 1815). See Almanach de Gotha vol. III pt 1. Fräulein Baldauf was not born when Liotard's pastel was executed in Vienna. We should all sense that the story of love-at-first-sight cutting across class boundaries is more characteristic of the late 19th century, when Baker's Chocolate disseminated it (see Sigmund Romberg operettas, Gaiety Girls etc) than of the 1740s.
An eighteenth-century copy of La Belle Chocolatière, cut to half-length, in the Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, has a label on the reverse "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 Tauton (E.Labouchere)". Fräulein Baldauf (born 1752) did become Fürstin Diedrichstein— in 1802. The serving-girl in Liotard's original could not have been Charlotte Baldauf. But this mistake is the kernel of the sentimental embroidery. The previous owner Henry Labouchere (not "E. Labouchere") became Lord Taunton (not "Lord Tauton") --Wetman (talk) 09:13, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
