Poster
1893 (produced)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This poster is highly reminiscent of Jean-Etienne Liotard's famous pastel of a young servant girl carrying a tray of hot chocolate, La Belle Chocolatière, (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). In Willette's composition however, the woman wears traditional Dutch folk dress, signalling the Netherlandish extraction of the Van Houten company, whose cocoa she advertises. The artist cleverly fuses symbols of tradition and 'exoticism' by placing the wholesome figure of the young woman against a yellow ground with trailing cacao tree branches. This enables him to suggest at once the origins of the product and its alleged health-giving properties.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Colour lithograph |
| Brief description | Colour lithograph 'Prenez du cacao Van Houten' by Adolphe Léon Willette, France 1893. |
| Physical description | A woman in Dutch folk dress proffers a tray bearing a cup of cocoa, against a yellow ground with trailing cacao tree branches. The words 'Prenez du cacao / Van Houten' appear on the bottom in black and red ink. |
| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Gallery label | 'American and European Art and Design 1800-1900'
Adolphe Léon Wilette was a prolific and popular painter, designer and illustrator, whose caricatures were widely published in humorous magazines, including the one he founded, La Vache Enragée. He produced stained glass and mural paintings for Rodolphe Salis at the artists' cabaret Le Chat Noir, as well as decorations for other Paris cafés and taverns. He produced about a dozen posters in all, but this cocoa poster for Cacao van Houten is not typical of his normal gentle, carefully-drawn style being much more solid and forceful.(1987-2006) |
| Credit line | Given by Mrs J.T. Clarke |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This poster is highly reminiscent of Jean-Etienne Liotard's famous pastel of a young servant girl carrying a tray of hot chocolate, La Belle Chocolatière, (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). In Willette's composition however, the woman wears traditional Dutch folk dress, signalling the Netherlandish extraction of the Van Houten company, whose cocoa she advertises. The artist cleverly fuses symbols of tradition and 'exoticism' by placing the wholesome figure of the young woman against a yellow ground with trailing cacao tree branches. This enables him to suggest at once the origins of the product and its alleged health-giving properties. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.306-1921 |
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| Record created | April 12, 2000 |
| Record URL |
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