SIGNED 'UQABI, INDIA, 19TH CENTURY

Created with no ink, pigments, gold or brushes, the nakhuni technique is an extremely elegant and minimalistic method which only involves a sheet of plain paper and the artist’s fingers. The few existing articles on the subject of nakhuni provide no evidence of this technique being practiced prior to the 19th century, although the secondary sources usually indicate a rough date for the emergence of the technique as the late Safavid period (1501-1736). Extant examples of this art illustrate its productions in India, Turkey and Afghanistan, as well as Iran. Our album is of Indian origin. In the second half of the 19th century, fingernail art had reached and was practiced in India. The examples created by the Indian artists encompass local styles of illumination, colouring, and gilding the traditionally bare medium (Shiva Mihan, "Fingernail Art (I): Three-dimensional Calligraphy and Drawing in the 19th-Century", (Part II: Iran), Digital Orientalist, December 2020, https://digitalorientalist.com/2020/12/11/fingernail-art-three-dimensional-calligraphy-and-drawing-in-19th-century/).
Other published nakhuni albums of Indian origin include a nakhuni manuscript of the Asma’ al-Husna, containing 99 names of God is in the Khudabakhsh Library in Patna, India (ms. no. 3980); a nakhuni copy of Saʿdi Shirazi in the Golpayegani Library in Qum (ms. no. 43484); a nakhuni album of poetry in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, (album no. 4625), dated 1866-67; and two nakhuni albums in the Tehran University Library (UT) nos. 9814, 9815. Two examples of Qajar nakhuni manuscripts were sold these Rooms on 28 October 2021 lot, 33 and 7 April 2021, lot 28.
For more information on the history of khatt-i nakhuni please see Shiva Mihan, op. cit., and "Fingernail Art (II): Three-dimensional Calligraphy and Drawing in the 19th-Century", (Part II: Neighbouring Countries and Contemporary artists), Digital Orientalist, February 2021, https://digitalorientalist.com/2021/02/05/fingernail-art-three-dimensional-calligraphy-and-drawing-in-the-19th-century/. The third part will be published late October 2021.