diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
index 733e86e38e47a..9cb0339f60cd7 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt
@@ -345,3 +345,4 @@ Bug Fixes
 
 - Bug in ``read_sql`` with pymysql connections failing to return chunked data (:issue:`11522`)
 
+- Bug in ``DataFrame`` when masking an empty ``DataFrame`` (:issue:`11859`)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 5cb31717394c6..781d4b8bddf12 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -2047,7 +2047,7 @@ def _getitem_multilevel(self, key):
             return self._get_item_cache(key)
 
     def _getitem_frame(self, key):
-        if key.values.dtype != np.bool_:
+        if key.values.size and not com.is_bool_dtype(key.values):
             raise ValueError('Must pass DataFrame with boolean values only')
         return self.where(key)
 
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
index 45f528ceec02b..aa18c7826e544 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_frame.py
@@ -826,6 +826,13 @@ def test_setitem_empty_frame_with_boolean(self):
                 df[df > df2] = 47
                 assert_frame_equal(df, df2)
 
+    def test_getitem_empty_frame_with_boolean(self):
+        # Test for issue #11859
+
+        df = pd.DataFrame()
+        df2 = df[df>0]
+        assert_frame_equal(df, df2)
+
     def test_delitem_corner(self):
         f = self.frame.copy()
         del f['D']