Funerary figurines, called shabtis, and later ushabtis, were left in the tomb to perform labor for the deceased. This example was carved in wood for Nebseni, who bore the title Scribe of the Treasury of the God’s Wife. It exemplifies the high-quality New Kingdom funerary figurines that were made in only one or two examples for each burial, hence the great amount of effort that went into their production. It shows Nebseni in a mummified state, his body concealed by wrappings that reveal only its contours, like the soft curves of his buttocks and calves. His hands are closed in fists that emerge from the linen wrappings. He wears a tripartite wig with two lappets in the front; the rest of the hair falls in a heavy rectangle to the center of his back. He has a broad face, large ears, a wide nose, and a mouth set in a straight line. His eyes look slightly upward, giving him a wistful expression. Pigment has been used very sparingly on his eyes, his thick eyebrows, and his cosmetic lines. The lack of carved or painted detail, especially on the wig and false beard, adds to the shabti’s simple elegance. The back is undecorated.1

The wood, which has been identified as tamarisk, is fine-grained and of a beautiful reddish-brown color, a hue that may have evoked solar associations. Tamarisk also alludes to the Osiris myth, for in some versions of the story the god was enclosed in a tamarisk coffin, and coffins made from this type of wood are known.
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Additional Views of Cat. 37

Book of the Dead Spell 6, the shabti spell, is incised into the surface of the front of the body in vertical columns that imitate the arrangement of contemporary funerary papyri. Each hieroglyph is cut with great detail and filled with Egyptian blue pigment. In spite of the care the artist took while cutting the signs, the text itself contains errors that may be due to him working from a corrupt master copy of the Book of the Dead.^[1]3

The exact location of the tomb of Nebseni is not known, but it was certainly in Western Thebes (now Luxor), for clay funerary cones that once ornamented his tomb have been found there.^[2] His title, Scribe of the Treasury of the God’s Wife, indicates that he served in the administration of the queen, who, in early Dynasty 18, held the title God’s Wife [of Amun], marking her special prominence in the cult of Amun, especially at Thebes.4

For more on shabtis and ushabtis, see About Shabtis and Ushabtis.5

Provenance

Mohammed Mohasseb (1843–1928), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1892.6

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 64 (ill.), 66n1.7

Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1960), 12–13, 65, 66, 72, 76, 289, pl. 106 (as OIM 18001).8

Erhart Graefe, Untersuchungen zur Verwaltung und Geschichte der Institution der Gottesgemahlin des Amun vom Beginn des Neuen Reiches bis zur Spätzeit (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrossowitz, 1981) 1:114.9

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): no. 6, 21, 22 (ill.).10

Anne K. Capel and Glenn Markoe, eds., Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, exh. cat. (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1996), cat. 49, 117, 203–4.11

Douglas Brewer and Emily Teeter, Egypt and the Egyptians, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), cover illustration.12

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 21.
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