Egyptian Turquoise Blue Faience Ushabti of Iwesenhesetmut; Lady of the House and Chantress of Amun-Re

Third Intermediate Period, Twenty-first Dynasty, circa 1000 BC, belonging stylistically and epigraphically to the published group made for this Lady of the House and Chantress of Amun-Re. The compact mummiform figure wears a tripartite wig articulated with black stripes, with painted eyebrows and outlined eyes above a modeled nose and mouth; crossed hands hold agricultural implements, while a hatched basket with prominent attachment loops occupies the back. Multiple vertical columns of black-painted hieroglyphs extend around the body, their arrangement and surviving signs supporting the proposed identification with Iwesenhesetmut, although the personal name remains a provisional reading. The corresponding published inscriptions invoke Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead, enabling the shabti to answer when its owner was summoned to agricultural labor in the afterlife, including cultivating fields, irrigating riverbanks, and transporting sand. 
Height approximately 3.5 inches (8.9 cm), excluding the wooden display base, into which the feet are slightly recessed.
The turquoise glaze and extensive black decoration survive with surface abrasion, pitting, and small losses; a repaired fracture crosses the ankles, with conspicuous brown adhesive and localized losses around the join.

Cf. the closely related worker shabtis in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1872.947, and University of Aberdeen, ABDUA:63385, illustrated by Janes, and the British Museum example EA33966, catalogued under the variant name Isthesenmut (published museum parallels; British Museum).

Her burial, probably in western Thebes, had evidently been opened by approximately 1817–1818, when the Rev. Robert Fitzherbert Fuller appears to have acquired her mummy and coffin ensemble in Egypt; he presented them to the Devon and Exeter Institution in 1819, but neither an exact discovery date nor a securely identified tomb location is documented. Belzoni’s possible involvement has been suggested but remains unproven.

Provenance: Property from an English gentleman.