Chocolate in Eighteenth-Century France

Throughout the long eighteenth century, chocolate remained a drink of distinction, associated with gallantry and respectability. Early modern images of chocolate can reveal fundamental aspects of its fabrication, preparation and consumption. The article starts with iconographical clarification to avoid confusion between coffee and chocolate, as in J.B. Charpentier’s portrait of the Family of the Duke of Penthièvre (1770s). The complex process of transforming cacao into a sweet paste, from colonial to domestic environments, is essential to understanding the semi-luxurious status of early modern chocolate. Production was fraught with exhausting labour, colonial exploitation and enslavement and potentially bad quality or adulteration. Yet, elitist purchasing power, excellent taste and refined manners characterize visual representations of chocolate, contextualized here with a focus on France. Rendering effort and hardship invisible or aestheticized, art also exoticized, eroticized and enlivened consumption with sensorial stimulation. One type of anxiety around chocolate, spilling, triggered novelties in material culture and decorum.