Collections: American Art: Temple of Khonsu at Karnak

• Download
• Add to set
• Favorite
• Posse icon
• Share
• Print

Temple of Khonsu at Karnak

Blashfield made this drawing of the colonnaded forecourt of an ancient temple while sailing down the Nile with his father-in-law, Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833–1896), a noted Egyptologist and benefactor of the Brooklyn Museum’s world-class Egyptian collections. Catering to Americans’ taste for “exotic” subject matter, Blashfield used his Egyptian sketches to illustrate articles he and his wife wrote for the popular Scribner’s Magazine in 1891–92.


• Artist: Edwin Howland Blashfield, American, 1848-1936
• Medium: Graphite on light tan, medium weight, slightly textured wove paper
• Dates: 1887
• Dimensions: Sheet (uneven): 10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 34.9 cm)
• Signature: Signed lower right: "BY / E. H. BLASHFIELD '87"
• Inscriptions: On verso, in graphite below drawing of woman: "Fatma / Medinet / Aboo"
• Collections: American Art
• Museum Location: This item is not on view
• Accession Number: 48.217.8
• Credit Line: Gift of John H. Field
• Image: Overall, 48.217.8_PS1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2006
Edwin Howland Blashfield (American, 1848-1936). Temple of Khonsu at Karnak, 1887. Graphite on light tan, medium weight, slightly textured wove paper, Sheet (uneven): 10 5/8 x 13 3/4 in. (27 x 34.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of John H. Field, 48.217.8 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 48.217.8_PS1.jpg)
• Catalogue Description: Small graphite drawing on verso of profile portrait bust of young Egyptian woman