Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - Harpress Tomb, Egypt - unknown - T-Shirt

A pencil profile of an ancient Egyptian head, drawn with fine, deliberate line on a pale cream ground.

Visual Elements & Composition

The head faces left in strict profile and fills the centre of an otherwise empty sheet. Cream dominates the page, while the drawing itself is built from pencil grey and a faint tan stain. A straight nose, a long eye outlined in a single stroke and a firm, closed mouth set the face. A rearing serpent rises from the brow above a band across the head. Vertical striations fall over the ear and shoulders, and a broad collar is rendered in short horizontal marks across the chest. The caption Harpers Tomb sits at lower right.

Meaning & Symbolism

The serpent on the brow is the uraeus, a royal and divine emblem worn on the headdress. Together with the striped headdress and banded collar, it marks the figure as a formal, high-status subject. The profile follows the conventions of ancient Egyptian relief and painting, where the head is shown from the side and features are reduced to firm outlines. The drawing records the original carving or painting closely rather than reinterpreting it. Nineteenth-century travellers in Egypt made copies like this to document monuments that could not be carried home. The sheet comes from Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, an American landscape painter born in Manlius, New York, whose Mediterranean travels supplied much of his subject matter. The original artwork is held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A profile head is a design that reads at a glance and then rewards a closer look. The uraeus, the striping and the collar all sit in a single line of sight, so the eye moves from the serpent down the headdress to the chest. Worn across the chest, the drawing keeps its quiet, formal presence, and the fine detail of the pencil line stays legible at close range.