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.