Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - House of the Governor of Thebes - unknown - T-Shirt

A graphite pencil study of a mud-brick house facade at Thebes, drawn on cream paper with latticed windows, a robed figure in the doorway and a handwritten note along the lower edge.

Visual Elements & Composition

Cream paper fills most of the frame, with soft grey graphite carrying the drawing. Two tall recessed windows fitted with fine latticed screens sit above a low step of stones, and a thick, plain wall runs beside them. A robed figure stands at the doorway on the left, small against the building's bulk. Rounded and angular projections line the roofline, and the handwritten inscription in the lower margin reads "House of the Governor of Thebes, where we dined Feb 3rd 1844." The text is the only lettering, and it anchors the sheet like a caption.

Meaning & Symbolism

The inscription tells you why the sketch exists. It records a specific meal taken at the governor's house in 1844, so the drawing preserves an everyday domestic setting rather than a monument of antiquity. The lattice screens and the figure at the threshold show where a traveller's eye settled: on local building forms and on the people who moved through them. Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born in Manlius, New York, made the study during his travels in the Near East, when pencil sketches of towns and houses were drawn on the spot and later used as references for finished paintings. It stands as a record of place and daily life in Egypt, made by a Western artist documenting the households he encountered.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A tee carries this sketch across the chest, so the lattice windows and the doorway figure sit at the eye line of anyone wearing it. The pale paper and light pencil lines read as a quiet image up close, the kind of drawing you notice when you look at it closely, and the inscription gives the wearer a story to tell about where the sketch came from.