From St. John’s Week

By the 1850s the middle classes secured their social position and one consequence was a growing interest in genre painting. Attention focused on the idyllic side of city and village life with emphasis on religious and moralistic elements. In those years Dvořák, originally a portraitist, painted his first "real-life pictures". In this painting he depicted the festive atmosphere of a beautiful summer morning on St John Nepomuk's day (16 May). In the window stands a small portable altar with St John, the room is filled with sundry small objects, favourite props of genre painters.