26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC. A substantial light blue glazed composition shabti figurine belonging to a man named Nes-Ptah, a Sameref-priest and prophet of Isis, born of Tayes-shepset-hert; the mummiform statuette wearing a plain tripartite wig and a braided beard, arms crossed over the chest, holding pick and hoe with a seed bag over the left shoulder, plain dorsal pillar; the body of the figurine covered in ten horizontal lines of hieroglyphic text of version IIA of the 'spell of causing a shabti to do work for his master in the netherworld' from the Book of the Dead; mounted on a custom-made display stand. See Milde, H., 'Shabtis' in Wendrich, W. (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles, 2012; PN I = Ranke, Hermann, Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, Band I, Glückstadt, 1935; Scheider, H., Shabtis. An Introduction to the History of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statuettes, Leiden, 1977, Pt.1; Stewart, H.M., Egyptian Shabtis, Shire Egyptology 23, Princes Risborough, 1995. 230 grams total, 20cm including stand (8"). From the collection of a Kensington gentleman; previously in the collection of Mrs Petra Schamelman, Breitenbach, Germany; acquired from the collection of Fernand Adda, formed in the 1920s; accompanied by an academic report by Dr Alberto Maria Pollastrini. A Sameref-priest was linked to the Egyptian funerary rites, especially to the Opening of the Mouth ritual, and to the cult of Osiris and his identification with the god Herishef.

Fine condition.