Kitchen Ball at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia

This is a genre painting, or a work of art that depicts a scene from everyday life. It features images of Black men and women dancing in the kitchen of a resort. The white attire worn by the dancing couple may indicate that this was a wedding celebration. The artist depicted each person in the painting as a unique individual. Most images of Black people created at the time were racist caricatures that exaggerated their features in a mocking way. A scene depicting the private lives of Black individuals was rare in the pre-Civil War South.

The setting for this painting is the kitchen of a resort in Virginia. White Sulphur Springs was a popular summer destination for wealthy, white plantation-owning families in the 1800s. The people depicted in this scene were most likely household servants who had accompanied these families. Slave owners often brought their favorite servants with them to the resort. Sometimes they sponsored on-site social events for their servants. 

Christian Friedrich Mayr was a German-American artist known for his portraits and genre paintings. 

He observed and painted this scene when he visited White Sulphur Springs in 1838. Mayr also worked in daguerreotype, an early version of photography.