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

The print shows six 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. 77: Cleopatra I, the first wife of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, as portrayed at Philae (see Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", 2nd ed, Oxford (Clarendon Press & Griffith Institute): 1960-1999, vol. VI, pp. 119-168) no. 78: Cleopatra II, the second wife of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, as portrayed in the pronaos of the temple of Horus at Edfu (for the temple see Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. VI, pp. 119-168) no. 79: Ptolemy IX Soter II, as portrayed in the temple at of Horus Edfu and a gate at Qus (for Qus see Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. VI, pp. 135-136) no. 80: Ptolemy X Alexander I, as portrayed in the temple of Horus at Edfu no. 81: Berenice III or Cleopatra, the only daughter of Ptolemy IX Soter II, as portrayed in the temple of Horus at Edfu no. 82: Cleopatra VII, daughter of Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos, as portrayed on the rear wall of the Temple of Hathor at Dendara (Porter & Moss, "Topographical Bibliography", vol. VI, p. 79)

It 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 C 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.

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).