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

The print shows four heads and shoulders in profile, accompanied by identifying hieroglyphs in cartouches. They are numbered from top to bottom and from left to right, and depict: no. 25: Merneptah, thirteenth son and successor of Ramesses II, as portrayed in his tomb at Biban el-Moluk (the Valley of the Kings) (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", 2nd ed, Oxford (Clarendon Press & Griffith Institute): 1960-1999, vol. I, pt 2, pp. 507-508) no. 26: Sety II, son of Merneptah, fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, as portrayed in his tomb at Biban el-Moluk (the Valley of the Kings) (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. I, pt 2, p. 532) no. 27: Sethnakhte, first pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty, as portrayed in his tomb (usurped from Tawosret) at Biban el-Moluk (the Valley of the Kings) (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. I, pt 2, p. 529) no. 28: Ramesses III (reigned c.1187-c.1156 BC), second pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty, as portrayed in his tomb at Biban el-Moluk (the Valley of the Kings) (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. I, pt 2, pp. 523-524).

The print is 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. 15 in the Educational Series, where he entitled it "Egyptian head-dress". 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. As it can no longer be found, it is represented here by a black-and-white reproduction of a plate from the volume in the Sackler Library of the University of Oxford.

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).