Studies in Expression: While an Old Gentleman Listens to Some of His Son's Classmates

Six men in white-tie evening dress sit around a dining table strewn with cups and glasses, smoke curling toward a chandelier. One young man gestures expansively with a cigar, apparently holding forth; another sprawls in his chair with aristocratic indolence; a third drinks; the older gentleman at the far right watches them all with an expression of quiet, sardonic assessment. Gibson's title promises a comedy of physiognomy—the father reading his son's friends so we don't have to. The satire is purely class-internal: these are prosperous Anglo-American young men behaving with the careless ease that money buys, and the joke is the gap between their self-satisfaction and the elder's visible skepticism. The penwork is characteristic Gibson—hatched shadows, impeccable tailoring, social comedy through posture alone.