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Published: Olivier Perdu, “Compléments au dossier des prêtres renep et des autres prêtrises d'Imaou,” BIFAO 120, 2020, p. 280-282, doc. 47, fig. 8.
Egypt, 664-525 BC. Finely carved as a kneeling priest presenting a naos containing a standing figure of Osiris. The god is shown mummiform, wearing the tall atef crown and holding the crook and flail crossed before the chest. The shrine rises directly from the rectangular base and is surmounted by a rounded roof, its facade framed by vertical columns of finely incised hieroglyphs. Further inscriptions extend over the dorsal support and around the base. The donor kneels immediately behind the shrine, his folded legs forming a compact composition in profile.
Inscriptions:
To the naos, ‘An offering which the king gives to Osiris who resides in Sais; everything that appears upon his altar for the ka of the kherep-hut priest, god’s father, servant of Horus of the Two Great Diadems, renep-priest and hepet-wedjat-priest, Necho, son of Iuefaa, son of the kherep-hut priest Padineith, whom Tjeskhoutperet conceived.’
To the dorsal support, ‘[An offering which the king gives to …] the invocation offering, every good, pure, and pleasing thing on which a god lives, for the ka of the guest, kherep-hut priest, god’s father, overseer of confidential affairs […], the one who presents Maat, and prophet of Hathor, Mistress of Mefky, Necho, son of Iuefaa, whom Heqeret conceived.’
Around the base, an appeal addressed to ‘all the wab-priests who come and go in the temple of the Mistress of Sais,’ asking them to perpetuate the memory of the owner before the ‘great god who presides over the House of the King of Lower Egypt,’ identified by Perdu as the Saitic Osiris.
Provenance: The private collection of Louis-Benjamin Fleuriau de Bellevue (1761-1852), La Rochelle, France, brought back from one of his journeys, by repute, and thence by descent within the same family. Beaussant Lefèvre & Associés, H?tel Drouot, Paris, 15 November 2013, lot 19, mid-estimate of EUR 25,000 or approximately EUR 33,000 (adjusted for inflation at the time of writing). Thereafter with Galerie Chenel, Paris, France. A private collection, Marseille, France, acquired from the above. A copy of a certificate from Galerie Chenel, confirming the provenance and dating above, accompanies this lot. Louis-Benjamin Fleuriau de Bellevue (1761-1852) was a prominent La Rochelle naturalist, geologist, traveler, collector, and public figure. Trained in the natural sciences at Geneva, he undertook extensive scientific journeys through Europe between 1788 and 1793 and later played an important role in organizing and preserving the natural-history collections of La Rochelle; his own collections and library were ultimately bequeathed to the city, whose Musée du Nouveau Monde was named in his honor.
Condition: Very good condition, commensurate with age. Obvious losses, expected wear, weathering and erosion, scattered small nicks, encrustations. The hieroglyphic inscriptions remain remarkably extensive, well-preserved, and largely legible.
Weight: 5.9 kg
Dimensions: Height 20.7 cm
The inscriptions preserve an unusually well-preserved detailed record of the statue's owner and his family. Necho was the son of Iuefaa and Heqeret and belonged to a priestly family of the western Delta; his paternal grandfather Padineith likewise held the title of kherep-hut priest, while Tjeskhoutperet was most probably his paternal grandmother. Necho himself held a remarkable succession of priestly offices, including kherep-hut priest, god's father, servant of Horus of the Two Great Crowns, renep-priest, hepet-wedjat-priest, and prophet of Hathor, Mistress of Mefky.
The present statue belongs to a distinctive corpus of private naophorous monuments associated with Sais during the Saite period and is remarkable for the precision with which its original context can be reconstructed. Perdu demonstrates that both the inscriptions and the form of the naos point specifically to Sais. Particularly significant is the appeal around the base to priests of the temple of the “Mistress of Sais,” while the rounded roof of the Osirian shrine belongs to a type characteristic of private statues originating from the city and appears to echo the form of the local sanctuary of Osiris. A particularly instructive parallel is the kneeling basalt statue of Psamtik-sa-Neith, 26th Dynasty, likewise presenting a shrine containing Osiris and originally dedicated in the temple of Neith at Sais (Penn Museum, Philadelphia, inventory number 42-9-1). The convergence of textual, cultic, and architectural evidence thus provides an unusually secure localization for the present monument within the Saitic sculptural tradition.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related gray basalt naophorous figure with a shrine containing Osiris, dated to the 26th Dynasty, 18.5 cm high, in the British Museum, London, registration number EA2288. Compare a closely related kneeling naophorous statue of Horpairdisu, 26th Dynasty, attributed to Sais, with a shrine containing a divine image, in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, CG 665, illustrated in Ludwig Borchardt, Statuen und Statuetten von K?nigen und Privatleuten im Museum von Kairo, vol. III, Berlin, 1930, p. 12-13, no. 665, pl. 122. Compare a closely related fragmentary kneeling naophorous statue of Iaa, son of Padihorpe, Saite Period, first half of the 26th Dynasty, carved from gray granite and measuring 26 cm in preserved height, in the Musée Rodin, Paris, inventory number Co. 3378.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 14 October 2014, lot 111
Price: USD 100,000 or approx. EUR 123,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An Egyptian graywacke naophoros for the priest Tja-Khonsu-imu, Late Period, 26th-30th Dynasty, 664-343 BC
Expert remark: Compare the closely related Late Period dating, dark hardstone medium, kneeling naophorous form, integral base and back pillar, extensive hieroglyphic inscriptions, and shrine held before the figure. Note the larger size (34.6 cm) and that the naos contains Hathor in the form of the heavenly cow, whereas the present example contains Osiris.
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