A masquerade ball is a special kind of formal ball which many participants attend in costume wearing masks. Less formal "costume parties" may be a descendant of this tradition. A masquerade ball usual
Masquerade ball at the Carnival of Venice.
A Veneziana mask from Verona, Italy.
German 16th century, a masquerade from Freydal, the tournament book of Maximilian I, c. 1515, pen and brown ink with watercolor on laid paper. One in a series at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection.
Masquerade ball at Château de Hattonchâtel, France.
A ball is a formal dance event often characterised by a banquet followed by a social dance. Ball dancing emerged from formal dances during the Middle Ages and carried on through different iterations t
Masquerade ball
…A masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is a special kind of formal ball which many participants attend in costume wearing masks. (Compare the word "masque"—a formal written and sung court pageant.) Less formal "costume…
Two ladies are presented to Emperor Franz Joseph at a ball in the Hofburg Imperial Palace, painting by Wilhelm Gause (1900)
The Ball on Shipboard by James Tissot, 1873
A ball at the Russian imperial court in the 1910s
A Finnish author Väinö Linna (left) and his translator Nils-Börje Stormbom (right) in the middle of a ball at the 1968 Independence Day reception at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland