"Mineah on the Nile" by American artist, Minor Kilbourne Kellogg (1814-1889).Circa 1850.

Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed, lower left, "Kellogg". Titled in pencil on the stretcher, left top, "Mineah on the Nile" (this is the modern day Egyptian city of Minya). Label attached to the reverse from Atelier Dore Gallery in San Francisco. Canvas bears stamp of "Atelier Rue Clichy No.7 - DEFORGE - ... Couleurs - Boulevard Monmartre 8" (in Paris).

The oil paintings executed in Europe by Minor Kellogg using his sketches made during his travels in Egypt, Palestine, Arabia and Turkey during the 1840s are the among the earliest Orientalist works done by an American. They are very rare and most are held in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC.

This painting depicts an expansive view of the central Nile River at Minya in the 1840s with a number of vignettes of local life, including men working at a well, women conversing, a man smoking a pipe, a man with his camels and people on the other side of the river in front of a building. A museum quality American 1840s Orientalist painting.

PAINTING - 15 3/4" x 24 3/4" (40 cm x 63 cm)

FRAME - 19 1/4" x 28 1/4" (49 cm x 72 cm)

PROVENANCE : Atelier Dore Gallery, San Francisco. San Francisco collection.

NOTES / REFERENCES : Miner Kilbourne Kellogg (1814-1889) Born in New York in 1814. In 1818 his family moved to Ohio, and in 1825, they lived briefly in a utopian community at New Harmony, Indiana (1825), where other members encouraged him to sketch.

He studied in Cincinnati with Frederick Ecksteins Academy of Fine Arts. In 1833 he traveled with Frederick Franks touring exhibition, and while traveling, he pursued an itinerant career as a portraitist. In 1837, he received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy and there studied drawing with Robert Weir.

In 1839, he returned to Cincinnati and was commissioned to paint a portrait of Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, Jackson's home in Nashville, Tennessee, and following that, he painted a portrait of President Martin Van Buren.

As a courier for the U.S. State Department, Kellogg left for Italy in 1841, where he lived until 1844. On this trip, he was in Bologna, Venice and Florence, and the next year he sketched in Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Syria. In 1846, he traveled in North Africa, painting portraits and figurative works, specializing in Oriental scenes. Then he became manager for the American tour of Hiram Powers sculpture, The Greek Slave.

During the next two decades traveled, to Europe (1854 - 1858), then New York City, Washington DC and Baltimore (1867 - 1870). In 1872, he was in Texas, having been hired by the Texas Land and Copper Association "to accompany an expedition to explore for copper deposits in northwest Texas." with Kellogg recording the landscape with watercolor and pencil drawings. From this venture, Kellogg moved to New York City, then to Cleveland, and then onto Toledo Ohio, where he died in 1889.

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Generally good condition. Original French stretcher bars - never lined. Mild overall craquelure, not noticeable from normal viewing distance. Slight overall yellowing of the varnish. No indication of in-painting under examination with ultra-violet light. Contemporary frame in good condition.