Le Matin Apres Le Bal (The Morning After the Ball)

This painting depicts a young woman reading of her success at the ball in the society pages. Edison purchased the painting at the Paris Exposition of 1889 and had it shipped to his New Jersey estate. Before being shown at the Paris Exposition it had been exhibited at the Paris Salon where it had received a gold medal. The woman who posed for the painting was a ballet dancer at the "Grand Opera" ballet in France. In the scene she is lying in bed scanning the society pages for mention of her debut at the ball. Her ball gown is tossed in the right hand corner of the painting. Artist A.A. Anderson indicated in a newspaper article that the focal point of the painting was the spray of violets on the night table next to the Louis XVI bed. A newspaper article recounts, 'Mr.Edison saw it, and at once became the lucky proprietor." In a letter to Anderson in November in 1890, Edison's secretary remarks that the painting, "now occupies a prominent place in Mr. Edison's residence, where it is much admired by everyone who sees it." In his biography the artist claimed that in 1890 a copy of the painting was made for the Czarina's boudoir in the Royal Palace at St. Petersburg as seen in illustration printed in the 'London Illustrated News" in 1890. Signed and Dated in lower left corner: A.A. Anderson- '89. Anderson also painted a portrait of Edison working on a tinfoil phonograph which is now owned and exhibited by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.