NEW KINGDOM, 19TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF SETY I, CIRCA 1290-1279 B.C.

This brightly coloured faience shabti of King Sety I, father of Rameses II, belongs to one of four main types known from his massive tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Thebes (KV 17), discovered by Belzoni in October 1817. As reported in his Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries in Egypt and Nubia (1820), they were discovered by the hundreds in a room off of the main burial chamber, though the exact number has not been established: “This chamber is forty three feet four inches by seventeen feet six inches; the pillars are three feet seven inches square. It is covered with white plaster, but there is no painting on it. I named it the Bull’s or Apis’ Room, as we found the carcass of a bull in it, embalmed in asphaltum; and also, scattered in various places, an immense quantity of small wooden figures of mummies six or eight inches long and covered with asphaltum to preserve them. There were some other figures of fine earth baked, coloured blue, and strongly varnished.” A substantial number of the known examples are in faience, but many known examples are carved of wood, coated prior to burial in a dark resin that in many cases partially conceals their inscriptions but served to enhance their sacred nature.
J.-F. and L. Aubert, in Statuettes Égyptiennes: Chaouabtis, Ouchebtis, Paris, 1974, p. 79, write that this shabti and four others were chosen as the most beautiful of their type and gifted to Belzoni's friend, Lord Belmore, who had sponsored some of his excavations in Egypt. This fine example is inscribed with six horizontal bands of hieroglyphs for 'King Menmaatre'.