Alamshah cleaving asunder the chain of the wheel, from volume 11 of a Hamza-nama (Adventures of Hamza) (c. 1560s–70s): Art, History and Details

Alamshah cleaving asunder the chain of the wheel, from volume 11 of a Hamza-nama (Adventures of Hamza) (c. 1560s–70s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The hero, Alamshah the Greek, perches on a cliff above a rushing torrent of water. He has just slain the villain who raised the massive bronze plug on the dam in order to wash away the camp of Alamshah’s father, Hamza. The Hamza-nama recounts the adventures of an uncle of the Prophet Mohammed. It was the first major undertaking of the fledgling painting workshop created by Akbar. Originally in 14 volumes of 100 illustrations each, just a little more than 10 percent of the pages survive.

Object facts

• Title: Alamshah cleaving asunder the chain of the wheel, from volume 11 of a Hamza-nama (Adventures of Hamza)
• Date: c. 1560s–70s
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on cotton and paper
• Dimensions: Page: 83.7 x 67 cm (32 15/16 x 26 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1976.74

A detail from the museum

The title in the bottom margin is a continuation of the text on the previous page.

Collection credit

Gift of George P. Bickford

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1976.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 2 (February 1977): 39–78.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.