History of Product Names & Trademarks: Baker's Chocolate

About the history and origins of famous product names and trademarks, in this case Baker's Chocolate.

BAKER'S CHOCOLATE The trademark was derived from a portrait of "La Belle Chocolatiere," which currently hangs in the Dresden Gallery in Germany. In 1745, an Austrian prince entered a chocolate shop in Vienna where he met and fell in love with Anna Baltauf, a waitress and the daughter of an impoverished knight. They were married and, as a wedding gift, the prince hired Jean Etienne Liotard, a famous Swiss artist, to do a portrait of Anna--dressed in her waitress outfit. The romantic tale was heard by Walter Baker, American chocolate manufacturer, who in 1825 packaged his breakfast coca with a label bearing the silhouette of the Austrian girl.