The Hyman Collection has vintage prints of several of these celebrated images.
Queen Charlotte's Ball was the highlight of what was called "The debutante season" and "coming out". It had its roots in the 18th century when around 1780 the King, George III, held a ball for his wife's birthday. The ball is known as the Queen Charlotte's Ball and it was proposed that the well bred and prettiest girls should attend to be presented at court to the Queen, in order that they could meet a suitable marriage partner, usuallv the brothers of the debs and known as the "debs delights". Only girls who had a relation who had herself been presented at court could come to the ball. When the Lord Chamberlain announced the end of the royal presentation ceremony in 1958, it provoked a record number of applications from distraught mothers. That year, 1,400 girls curtseyed in front of Queen Elizabeth II, over three days. The ball continued with the debs, bizarrely, curtseying to a giant cake in place of the Queen. The ball faded out in the 70's.
