Young Maids after the Ball

genre

This painting is a fine example of the Viennese influence on Hungarian genre painting. In Borsos' picture, brocades, pleats, ribbons, jewels, candelabra, fashion magazines and carpet patterns rival one another in depicting the atmosphere after the girls' ball and the grandiose surroundings. The artist arranged the scene himself as if it were a tableau vivante according to the fashion of those days.

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About the Artist

József Borsos

1821 – 1883

Hungarian portrait painter. He finished his studies in Vienna where he attracted much attention. His portraits of distinguished contemporaries and his elaborate genre pictures were highly successful, e.g. Wine, Woman, Love (1847), and Girls after the Ball (1850). His typically biedermeier colours, realistic, strong and delicate, and his harmonic compositions made him popular with the public patronizing art in Pest. After losing his money on the Stock Exchange, he moved from Vienna to Pest in 1861. Unable to compete with fotography, he opened a photographic studio and died as the owner of the restaurant Szép Juhászné. His works: Alms, Sunset, The Letter, Grapes or a Kiss, National Guard, Bathing Women, The Portrait of Zitterbach, an Architect, The Portrait of Ferenc Pulszky, and Pigeon Post.

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