Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - Malta - n.d. - T-Shirt

This pencil sheet pairs two coastal views of Malta, one above the other, showing the same fortified shoreline as a ship leaves harbour and as it returns.

Visual Elements & Composition

The sheet is drawn in graphite on parchment cream, with restrained grey line work and open margins left around each view. The upper view is anchored by a tall tower at the left edge, a long fortified wall with a crenellated parapet, and a rocky shoreline that falls away toward the right. The lower view is a skyline of flat-roofed buildings along a waterfront, with a small turret at the right and the quay running across the sheet. Each scene carries a handwritten caption beneath it: Malta - going out of harbour - to the left and Malta - going in to harbour - to the left.

Meaning & Symbolism

The two captions describe one shoreline seen from a vessel moving in opposite directions, so the pair records the approach to and departure from the harbour. For a traveller arriving or leaving by sea, the shore profile was the first and last impression of a port, and sketches like this kept those impressions for later reference. Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, an American painter born in Manlius, New York, often paired a scene with a short note on its position relative to the ship, and this page follows that method. The sheet reflects his sketchbook practice, in which views were gathered quickly on the spot for later use in more finished work.

On the T-Shirt

A sketchbook page reads best up close, the way a viewer would lean in to follow the pencil line from one caption to the next. Placed on the chest, the two harbour views keep their order from top to bottom, so the approach and departure stay in the same sequence Kellogg recorded.