SIGNED MUZAFFAR 'ALI BEG, INDIA, DATED AH 1285/1868-69 AD

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. Extant examples of this art illustrate its productions in India, Turkey and Afghanistan, as well as Iran. Our album is of Indian origin and encompasses an Urdu qasida. According to the colophon, it was commissioned by Sayyid Nizam al-Din Husayn Sahib between the two eids of the year AH 1285. The calligrapher is Muzaffar ‘Ali Beg, a well-known calligrapher who lived in India and died in AH 1289/1872-73 AD, therefore having completed this album during the last yeas of his life. He was celebrated for his nakhuni technique and is listed by Karimzadeh Tabrizi (M.A.Karimzadeh Tabrizi, The Lives and Art of Old Painters of Iran, Vol. III, London, 1985,p.1170). A recent example of an Indian khatt-i-nakhuni prayer book was sold in these Rooms, 31 March 2022, lot 88.