Too Early

Too Early is an 1873 genre painting by the French artist James Tissot.^[1] It depicts a ballroom in fashionable Victorian high society with some of the guests, a father and his three daughters, having arrived embarrassingly early for the ball. On the left their hostess is giving instructions to the orchestra while housemaids peer round the corner.^[2]

Too Early
Artist	James Tissot
Year	1873
Type	Oil on canvas, genre painting
Dimensions	71 cm × 102 cm (28 in × 40 in)
Location	Guildhall Art Gallery, London

Tissot had moved to London in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War. He displayed this and another work Last Evening at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition of 1873. Today the painting is in the collection of the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London, having been acquired in 1903.^[3]