Louis Eilshemius, American, b. - Portrait of Howard L. Coles - 1883 - T-Shirt

A young boy looks straight out from this graphite pencil portrait dated 1883, his head and shoulders filling the sheet.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built from off-white, graphite grey and charcoal, with the paper left open around the figure. Light, careful shading models the eyes, cheeks and jaw, while the buttoned jacket and striped collar are sketched in fewer, looser strokes. The background stays almost blank, so the face and its steady gaze hold the eye. An inscription in the upper right gives the name H. Coles, and the artist's signature and the date 1883 sit in the lower right.

Meaning & Symbolism

The frontal pose and unsmiling expression follow a nineteenth-century convention of the likeness, one meant to record a face and its character rather than an action or setting. The buttoned, carefully arranged clothing reflects the dignity expected of a child's portrait of the period. Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864-1941) produced drawings like this early in his career, when he practised precise draughtsmanship and close attention to likeness, before turning toward landscape and imaginative painting. The original is held in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden collection.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A head-and-shoulders portrait suits a tee, because the jacket and collar fill the front of the shirt while the boy's eyes rest at chest height. Anyone standing in front of the wearer meets that direct gaze, the same way a sitter would have met the artist's. The open paper around the face becomes the open field of the shirt, so the drawing reads cleanly as the wearer moves through a room.