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When the picture was painted, Hollósy ran a well-known art school in Munich. The master's original suggestive character, and his personal charms attracted young artists who wanted a revolution in art. Hollósy was familiar with the delicate naturalism of Bastian-Lapage, a celebrated French painter of the age, but Hollósy manage to create something new and true on Hungarian people, peasants or outlaws, wine and goulash, in Germany.
Genre pictures on village life did not represent a program for him, it was only a nostalgic experience for him. When issues on art were discussed in his school, there was wine on the table which recalled the atmosphere of village pubs. People are sitting in silence by wine and short episodes break the seemingly eventless evening. The hussar has stopped talking and the young man wearing a hat with flowers on it is raising his glass to say good-bye to the blushing maid: he is going to join the army as a recruit. The violin has stopped playing, the striped curtain and the red geranium answer the red apron of the maid. It is perhaps due to these colors that this afternoon us so typically Hungarian.
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