Mughal ruler Humayun defeating the Afghans before reconquering India, folio from an Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) of Abu’l Fazl (Indian, 1551–1602) (c. 1590): Art, History and Details

Mughal ruler Humayun defeating the Afghans before reconquering India, folio from an Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) of Abu’l Fazl (Indian, 1551–1602) (c. 1590) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In a battle that took place in 1555, the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, reconquered northern India from the Afghans with the help of Iranian military forces. His mounted figure stands out from the fray, with his golden helmet and red tunic silhouetted against a hillside in the upper center of the composition. To illustrate the beginning of hisown biography, Humayun’s son Akbar included this image of his father riding victoriously back to India. The scene never actually occurred in this way, since Humayun did not participate in this particular battle; his inclusion here is symbolic.

Object facts

• Title: Mughal ruler Humayun defeating the Afghans before reconquering India, folio from an Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) of Abu’l Fazl (Indian, 1551–1602)
• Date: c. 1590
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 31.2 x 18.6 cm (12 5/16 x 7 5/16 in.); Overall: 36.5 x 23.1 cm (14 3/8 x 9 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1971.77

A detail from the museum

A well-trained war elephant can pull an opponent off his horse with its trunk.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Levine, Deborah. “Great Events and Shining Actions.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 3 (March 1976): 89–95.
• 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.