Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - King from Tomb No. 6, Egypt - unknown - T-Shirt

A single face in strict profile, turned to the right, drawn in a few confident pencil contours on pale paper.

Visual Elements & Composition

Parchment tones fill nearly the entire sheet, with pencil grey lines and a faint ochre stain near the edges. The tall vertical crop gives the face room to breathe. A long, straight brow runs into the forehead, an almond-shaped eye holds a circular iris, and the nose is defined by a single clean edge. The mouth is closed and the chin is rounded. Shading is almost absent, so the outline does the work. In the lower left corner, a handwritten note reads King from Tomb No. 6.

Meaning & Symbolism

The drawing records the profile of a royal figure in the manner of an ancient Egyptian relief, with the strong linear clarity and the frontal emphasis on the eye that mark that carving tradition. Nineteenth-century European travellers to Egypt often copied monuments on the spot, and a sketch like this let them carry the exact contour of a carved face home. The note places the study within that practice of recording antiquities at their source. The drawing is attributed to Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, an American painter born in Manlius, New York, who worked abroad in the 1840s and produced many quick pencil studies. Sheets like this one were reference material for finished compositions. The original is held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection.

Restrained Lines, Worn Well

A profile reads as one unbroken outline, so it sits cleanly across the chest and holds its shape at a glance. Up close, the fine pencil detail rewards a second look: the eye, the brow and the handwritten note in the corner. This is a drawing made to be looked at closely, and it suits a shirt you notice in passing and then study.