Shabti of Padipep

Saite Period, Dynasty 26, probably Saqqara, c. 600–525 BCE
Faience
Height: 12.7 cm
Provenance: Former collection of Michele Yoyotte; accompanied by French passport documentation.

Finely modeled pale green faience shabti of the well-attested owner Padipep (Padipepet), represented mummiform with crossed arms holding agricultural implements, wearing a finely striated tripartite wig, and standing on an integral trapezoidal plinth. A single vertical column of hieroglyphs is preserved on the dorsal pillar, likely naming the deceased and preserving an abbreviated form of the traditional shabti formula derived from Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead.

On typological grounds, the figure may be attributed with confidence to the mature Saite workshop tradition, probably Saqqara, and corresponds closely to the refined 26th Dynasty worker shabti corpus classified by Schneider, characterized by elongated proportions, carefully modeled facial features, dorsal inscription pillar, and finely molded implements. The restrained elegance of the modeling and the pale turquoise-green glaze place this example among higher-quality productions of the period.

The owner Padipep is represented by a documented group of closely related shabtis, including examples in the British Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, which display close parallels in dimensions, inscriptional arrangement, morphology, and workshop style. The present figure likely belongs to this same dispersed corpus and may plausibly derive from the owner’s original funerary equipment.

Given the known parallels and the elite character of the object, the shabti was probably once part of a canonical 401-piece funerary set (365 worker shabtis and 36 overseers), standard for high-status Saite burials. Its smaller dimensions may suggest one production subgroup within that larger assemblage, while remaining fully consistent with the documented Padipep series.

A particularly desirable and scholarly significant example, distinguished by strong typological attribution, probable association with a known dispersed tomb group, and the distinguished provenance of Michele Yoyotte.