From the exhibition
Eugenie
Birdsall, William Wilfred, 1854-1909, [from old catalog] ed; Jones, Rufus Matt · Published 1901 in *Beautiful Gems from American Writers*, Chicago: International Publishing Co.; drawing attributed to Charles Dana Gibson

Gibson's pen-and-ink figure study, captioned EUGENIE and signed with his characteristic looping monogram, presents a young woman seen almost from behind, her face in three-quarter profile turned left. She wears a low, off-the-shoulder evening gown with puffed sleeves, long gloves, and a trained skirt pooling at her feet — the full costume vocabulary of the archetypal *Gibson Girl*: patrician, poised, and decoratively idle. Her hair is swept up with a small ornament, a detail Gibson deployed to signal breeding. No satirical caption intrudes; the plate functions as pure social portraiture. The figure exemplifies the *Gibson Girl* type that *Life* magazine celebrated during this period.
Birdsall, William Wilfred, 1854-1909, [from old catalog] ed; Jones, Rufus Matt No restrictions