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Lot Essay
Inscription:
In the lobed cartouche, al-sultan ibn al-sultan nasir al-din shah qajar, 'The sultan of the son of the sultan Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar'
In the left margin, raqam-i kamtarin 'ali akbar, 'Drawing of the lowliest 'Ali Akbar'
Both this and the following lot are examples of the nakhuni technique in which the artist uses no ink, pigments or brushes and instead makes impressions in the paper using their fingernail. Nakhuni works can either be calligraphic or representational with both our examples being the latter. The largest collection of khatt-i nakhuni art is found in a group of albums kept in the Gulistan Palace, Tehran. Royal portraits, like the present lot, are a regular subject including an 1850 portrait of Fath ‘Ali Shah signed by ‘Ali Akbar Naqqash (album no. 1570) and a portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah in his youth (album no. 1568). European paintings were another source of inspiration for nakhuni artists and many works are after or directly copy European examples, which was most likely the case for the following lot. For a portrait of a woman in the European style and a greater explanation of the history of khatt-i nakhuni please see Shiva Mihan, "Fingernail Art (I): Three-dimensional Calligraphy and Drawing in the 19th-Century", (Part I: Iran), Digital Orientalist, December 2020).
In the lobed cartouche, al-sultan ibn al-sultan nasir al-din shah qajar, 'The sultan of the son of the sultan Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar'
In the left margin, raqam-i kamtarin 'ali akbar, 'Drawing of the lowliest 'Ali Akbar'
Both this and the following lot are examples of the nakhuni technique in which the artist uses no ink, pigments or brushes and instead makes impressions in the paper using their fingernail. Nakhuni works can either be calligraphic or representational with both our examples being the latter. The largest collection of khatt-i nakhuni art is found in a group of albums kept in the Gulistan Palace, Tehran. Royal portraits, like the present lot, are a regular subject including an 1850 portrait of Fath ‘Ali Shah signed by ‘Ali Akbar Naqqash (album no. 1570) and a portrait of Nasir al-Din Shah in his youth (album no. 1568). European paintings were another source of inspiration for nakhuni artists and many works are after or directly copy European examples, which was most likely the case for the following lot. For a portrait of a woman in the European style and a greater explanation of the history of khatt-i nakhuni please see Shiva Mihan, "Fingernail Art (I): Three-dimensional Calligraphy and Drawing in the 19th-Century", (Part I: Iran), Digital Orientalist, December 2020).