When Some American girls go abroad and return empty-handed. Others pick up something first appeared in the pages of Life magazine, it captured the imagination of a generation fascinated by the social rituals of the Gilded Age. Its creator, Charles Dana Gibson, had already become a household name for his sharp-eyed illustrations of the so-called “Gibson Girl”—the independent, fashionable woman who both charmed and unsettled turn-of-the-century America.

The work’s title, with its sly double meaning, quickly entered the popular lexicon as shorthand for the era’s transatlantic marriage market, where American heiresses sought titled husbands in Europe. In the words of one contemporary critic, Gibson “sketched the follies of society with a pen as keen as any novelist’s wit.” Gibson chooses a moment brimming with both humor and critique: a group of elegantly dressed young women, recently returned from Europe, gather in a parlor. Some clutch souvenirs or display new jewelry, but one stands apart—her arm entwined with a bemused European nobleman, “picked up” abroad.

The composition is a wry tableau of social aspiration, with the women’s postures and expressions hinting at rivalry, triumph, and perhaps a touch of envy. The central figure’s confident gaze and the nobleman’s slightly awkward stance underscore the transactional nature of these unions. Unlike John Singer Sargent’s lush society portraits, Gibson’s linework is spare but incisive, relying on gesture and expression to tell the story. As with many of Gibson’s works, the original drawing’s precise medium and current whereabouts remain uncertain; his illustrations were widely reproduced in magazines and as prints, making originals rare and highly sought after.

This piece belongs to a prolific period in Gibson’s career, when his satirical observations shaped American views on gender and class. While the fate of this specific drawing is unclear, its image endures in anthologies and exhibitions devoted to the Gilded Age and the rise of the modern woman. Today, Some American girls go abroad and return empty-handed.

Others pick up something stands as a witty document of its time, and a testament to Gibson’s enduring influence on American visual culture.