Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The print shows an Egyptian man standing in profile, accompanied by identifying hieroglyphs in a cartouche. He is Amenhotep II (reigned c.1426-c.1400 BC), as portrayed in the sanctuary of the temple at Amada (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", 2nd ed, Oxford (Clarendon Press & Griffith Institute): 1960-1999, vol. VII, p. 70).

The image is one of six such portraits in one plate forming part of a series representing the kings and queens of ancient Egypt, and is taken from the first volume of plates from Ippolito Rosellini's "Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia", published in 1832. It was first catalogued by Ruskin in the "Catalogue of Examples" of 1870, as no. 16 in the Educational Series, where he entitled it "Egyptian costume". However, it did not reappear in any of his subsequent catalogues, and so was not part of the collection transferred to the University in the Deed of Gift of 31 May 1875. Whilst Ruskin noted that it was from plate 17, it was Cook and Wedderburn (XXI.61) who identified it as figure 6, presumably on the basis of Ruskin's instruction to 'draw the spotted head-dress very carefully'. As it can no longer be found, it is represented here by a plate from the volume in the Sackler Library of the University of Oxford.

The draughtsman identified as 'L' cannot be identified with certainty: he may have been either Nestor L'hôte or Charles Lenormant.

In a note in "The Ethics of the Dust", explaining how the individual aspects of the Egyptian deities were still largely unknown, Ruskin was somewhat sceptical of Rosellini's qualities: 'for the full titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as yet the only - and I believe, still a very questionable - authority' (Ethics of the Dust, note III = XVIII.363). In his entry below nos 176-180 in the Reference Series, Ruskin again questioned Rosellini's accuracy, noting that the colours were sometimes conjectural, 'slight traces of the original pigments, and those changed by time, being interpreted often too arbitrarily' (Standard and Reference Series catalogue, p. 22).