How you can use this image

This image is available to be shared and re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND).

You can reproduce this image for non-commercial purposes and you are not able to change or modify it in any way.

Wherever you reproduce the image you must attribute the original creators (acknowledge the original artist(s) and the person/organisation that took the photograph of the work) and any other rights holders.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find more images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Download

More information

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

There is a larger version, signed and dated 1857, in the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia. At a costume ball two bourgeois, distracted from pleasure by their devotion to business, consult the Moniteur Universel, the official government newspaper. They wear costumes derived from the commedia dell’arte which was the subject of renewed interest in nineteenth-century France (cf. Couture P370). Couture was a great admirer of Molière’s works and the reference to the playwright heightens the satirical allusion of this painting.