Footnotes

• Provenance:
  Ex Omar Pacha Sultan Collection
  Probably ex Michel Abemayor, New York
  Ex Barratt-Brown Collection
  
  Published:
  Hôtel Drouot 1905, no.412 illus.
  Collection de feu Omar Pacha Sultan le Caire, (Paris 1929), no.361, illus.
  Martin 1986, p.118, no.15 illus. pl.16
  Sotheby's New York 1997b, lot 57
  
  Literature:
  For a shabti closely related in technique compare that of Lady Sati in the Brooklyn Museum, see Kozloff et al. 1992, p.304, pl.37 & p.328, no.70.
  
  This shabti was almost certainly made for the Ay who played a major role both as a soldier and advisor during the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and especially during the reign of Tutankhamun, upon whose death the elderly Ay became King of Egypt through marriage to Tutankhamun's widow Ankhesenamum - who was also his grand-daughter. Geoffrey Martin has suggested that this shabti was destined for the tomb of Ay at Amarna, but due to various historical events he was never buried there. Ay was probably the brother of Amenhotep III's Great Wife Tiy, and so the uncle of Akhenaten and great-uncle of Tutankhamun, so probably the father of Nefertiti from which his title 'God's Father' could have originated. This shabti would have been made for Ay before he became pharaoh (1325-1321 B.C.), he was already an old man when he took the throne.
  
  Such shabtis would have been extremely rare in the Amarna period. The absence of attributes such as the tools and the beard indicate this is to be an earlier style of shabti, pre-dating the more common types that appeared after the reign of Amenophis III, or perhaps it attests to the retention of some of their ancient customs during the Heresy period.