LOT 0051

Egyptian Serpentine Shabti for King Senkamenisken

NUBIA, NAPATAN PERIOD, 643-623 B.C.

8 1/4 in. (659 grams total, 21 cm including stand).

Mummiform figure wearing a braided beard with chin-straps in relief, broad collar visible between the lappets of the nemes headdress adorned with a double uraeus, the crossed hands holding a hoe and pick, with a seed bag over the left shoulder, his broad face with straight nose, wide-set eyes and large ears, six horizontal lines of inscription, giving a version of Chapter 6 from the Book of the Dead; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

J.J. Klejman, Madison Avenue, New York, USA, 1960s.
UK private collection, acquired from the above, 1960s.
Bluett and Sons, London, 1979.
Sheppard & Cooper, UK, private collection, 1980s.
Sheikh Saoud Al-Thani, the 'Princely' private collection, UK.
Acquired from the above in 2017.
with Sotheby's, London, 5 July 2024, no.126.

Accompanied by a copy of the Bluett and Sons invoice, 22 January 1979.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13273-254064.

Cf. Lacovara, P., Teasley Trope, B., and D’Auria, S.H., The Collector’s Eye: Masterpieces of Egyptian Art from The Thalassic Collection, Ltd., Atlanta, 2001, pp. 130-131, no. 78, for a comparable serpentine example.

Of the 1277 shabtis of Senkamenisken found in the king's burial chamber of his pyramid tomb at Nuri (Pyramid 3), 410 are made of serpentine, the remaining 867 of faience.
The inscription reads: 'The illuminated one, the Osiris, the good god, lord of the two lands, Sekheper[en]re, true of voice, He says: "O this shabti, if anyone summons the Osiris Senkamenisken, true of voice, in order to do any work which is to be done in the God's Land (i.e. necropolis), to cultivate the fields, to irrigate the canals, to carry sand from the east to the west and vice versa, 'Here I am', you shall say".