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Hamzanama — Hamza's Army Attacks a Stronghold (folio, c.1562–1577)

Representative folio from the Hamzanama (Adventures of Hamza), a monumental 14-volume illustrated manuscript produced at the Mughal court under Emperor Akbar, c.1562–1577. Painted in opaque watercolor and gold on cloth-backed paper; exemplifies the fusion of Persian and Indian painting traditions under Mughal patronage.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor the Mughal miniature painting cluster with the Hamzanama, the landmark illustrated manuscript commissioned under Akbar.

Notes

  • ·The Hamzanama was commissioned by Emperor Akbar c.1562 and produced over approximately 15 years; original corpus comprised roughly 1,400 large-format folios across 14 volumes.
  • ·Supervised by Persian master painters Abd al-Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali; individual pages executed by workshop painters including Hindu and Muslim artists.
  • ·Folios are now dispersed across major collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of Islamic Art Vienna.
  • ·The cloth-mounted format (painted on cotton cloth, paper backing applied later) was unusual and large-scale relative to later Mughal manuscript conventions.
  • ·Subject matter drawn from the Persian romance cycle of Amir Hamza, uncle of the Prophet Muhammad.