Elihu Vedder, born New York City - (Illustration for Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám) Frontispiece - 1883-1884 - T-Shirt

A wreathed reveller lifts a cup beneath a vine-covered arch, while seated scholars gather in the shadows below him, in Elihu Vedder's frontispiece for the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built in two tiers. Above, a bearded man crowned with laurel reclines among companions crowding the arch, with vine leaves curling over the top edge. Below, a lettered tablet carries four lines of verse, and three seated men fill the foreground. Vedder worked in pale white chalk on a warm olive-brown ground, so the figures glow out of a deep umber shadow.

Meaning & Symbolism

The tablet reads, "Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit / Of This & That endeavour and dispute; / Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape / Than sadden after none or bitter Fruit." The verse counsels against restless argument and chooses the grape instead. The reveller with the cup embodies that choice, while the men with the scroll and the string of beads stand for the learning and devotion the poem regards with suspicion. Vedder, an American painter who worked largely in Rome, made the drawing in 1883-1884 as a contrast between wine and friendship on one side and the search for certainty on the other.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

The design is arranged as a single vertical scene, so it reads from the top of the chest downward, with the reveller's cup at eye level and the scholars below. The verse tablet sits where a reader would naturally look next, turning the shirt into a small page of the Rubáiyát worn close to the body.