Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - Turkish Girl of Constantinople - unknown - T-Shirt

Write a Review
$19.99 - $26.99
Shipping:
Free Shipping
Adding to cart… The item has been added

Mix & Match Discount

  • Any 3 Items — 10% off
  • Any 5 Items — 20% off
  • Any 10 Items — 30% off
Mix & match anything sitewide — combine tees, hoodies, and more. Discount applies automatically at checkout.

Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born Manlius - Turkish Girl of Constantinople - unknown - T-Shirt

A pencil and light watercolour portrait of a young woman in an embroidered green and red headdress, her long braid falling over one shoulder.

Visual Elements & Composition

The sheet is a three-quarter portrait drawn in graphite on cream paper, with restrained touches of colour. The palette is mostly parchment, with leaf green on the headdress band, vermilion red striping the crown, and a flash of teal blue in the fold at the back. The sitter turns her head toward the viewer, eyes level, and the figure dissolves into bare paper at the lower edge. The inscription in the lower right reads "Turkish girl of Constantinople," anchoring the image to its place and label.

Meaning & Symbolism

This is a costume study, a form in which travelling artists recorded the dress of the people they met in the cities of the Ottoman Empire. The headdress, plait and beaded cord carry the identity the label names, and the drawing gives them more care than the setting around them. Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, born in Manlius, New York, was an American painter who travelled in Europe and the Near East in the 1840s, and this figure study comes from that journey. Yet the face is observed directly and individually, resisting the type that such images were often built to show.

Made for the Wearer

A portrait like this is meant to be looked at closely, and a tee lets the drawing sit across the chest, where the headdress and braid frame the wearer's own shoulders. The lace-edged collar and dangling cord of the original find an echo in the neckline, so the artwork and the shirt share the same quiet, composed focus.

Specifications

Product Details

Size Guide

Care Instructions