Irene Gibson Emery, John Emery’s wife, was the daughter of celebrated illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. He often visited his daughter and son-in-law at Peterloon.

The Gibson Girl was the personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the pen and ink illustrated stories created by Charles Dana Gibson during a twenty year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States.

Gibson’s Illustrations appeared in all major New York publications: Harper’s Weekly, Scribners, and Colliers Magazine to name a few.

The inspiration for the Gibson Girl was Gibson’s own wife Irene Langhorne. Irene and her sister Nancy Langhorne Astor—who became the first woman to serve as a member of Parliament in the British House of Commons—served as early models for Gibson and personified the feminine ideal of the time.