Late Period, 664-332 BC. A light green, superbly-modelled shabti with tripartite wig and plaited beard, crossed hands holding tools, dorsal pillar and square base; bands of elaborate funerary hieroglyphic text on the lower body, in part reading: 'Smen Ta Wa priest of the food temple of Ptah and superior of the Pharaoh's food'. 234 grams, 19cm (7 1/2"). Private French collection, Paris art market, 1980s. A shabti of this superb quality can only have been made for a person of very high status. Ptah is the ultimate creator god, considered the demiurge, the artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe, who existed before all things, and by his wilfulness, imagined the world into existence.

Very fine condition, unusually fine modelling and hieroglyphic text.