The Beaux-Arts Ball (in French the Bal des Quatres Arts) is the annual

costume ball A costume party (American English) or fancy dress party (other varieties of English) is a type of party, common in contemporary Western culture, in which many of the guests are dressed in costume, usually depicting a fictional or stock char ...

traditionally given by the students of the

École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...

in Paris in the spring, in the École building on the rue Bonaparte overlooking the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

. Elaborately allegorical floats circled the room at midnight and were judged by a panel. "It is a riot, a revival of paganism, known elsewhere only in Italy. It is also, in its way, a hymn to beauty, a living explosion of the senses and the emotions," wrote E. Berry Wall in ''Neither Pest Nor Puritan.''On-line quote
Its reputation for fabulously designed nudity, ''louche'' antics,

cross-dressing Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

and high style encouraged imitators in American cities. In 1931, in New York, famous architects dressed up as their buildings and today, many American architecture schools hold similar costume balls. Reference to the Beaux-Arts Ball is made in the verse of the popular

Rodgers and Hart Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and the lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart ...

song " The Lady Is a Tramp" from ''

Babes in Arms ''Babes in Arms'' is a 1937 coming-of-age musical comedy with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Rodgers and Hart. It concerns a group of small-town Long Island teenagers who put on a show to avoid being sent to a work f ...

'' (1937).

Notes

Balls in France {{france-stub