The illustration to the Hamzanama Mughal, early 1560s
Gouache on prepared cloth, with text panels on paper; 67 x 49.5 cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1978.2596; Gift of Gerald Reitlinger)
The Hamzanama was one of the first Mughal illustrated manuscripts and by far the most ambitious. It originally comprised 1400 large paintings on cotton cloth, of which just over a tenth survive. Its subject is a rambling story-cycle of fantastic adventures attributed to Amir Harnza. uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. Harnza's many triumphs over dragons, demons, and sorcerers greatly appealed to the young Emperor Akbar. This project kept his newly recruited studio busy for fifteen years. In this early page from the series Hamza confronts a giant infidel warrior in battle. The youthful Amir topples his opponent with heroic ease: 'Umar-i Ma'di Karab pressed his horse into the middle of the battlefield and charged towards Amir [Hamza]. The Arab Amir waited until he drew near, then took one foot from his stirrup and kicked that champion's horse in the side. Horse and rider turned a somersault, and cheers and cries from both sides reached to the sky.' Tumbling headlong, his lance broken and his arrows spilling, 'Umar-i Ma'di Karab clearly never stood a chance. The onlookers may well 'bite the finger of amazement'. But even in defeat, he remains a sympathetically noble figure, for after this he is converted to Islam and becomes one of Harnza's close companions.
The earliest Hamzanama pages were painted under the direction of the Persian master Mir Sayyid 'Ali and tend to be more restrained than the dynamic, often violent, later compositions. Here the ranks of horsemen and the high rocky skyline with a stylized tree are treated in a Persian manner, while the spirited musicians in the background are more distinctively Indian.
Mughal, c.1565
Gouache with gold on paper; 23.1 x 15.5 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.1, f.12b)
A ruler, probably the young Akbar, receives two noblemen who are introduced by an elderly courtier, beneath a richly ornate canopy. Attendants stand on either side, while in the foreground a spirited group of dancers and musicians provide the Emperor's entertainment. The dancing-girls with castanets and their tambourine players wear the plumed head-dresses of the Chaghatai Turks of Central Asia, whence Akbar's grandfather, Babur, had come forty years earlier to conquer northern India.
The lively informality of this court scene is typical of early Mughal painting under Akbar. A composition deriving from Persian painting, with figures disposed of broadly in a circle, is reworked with brio. Some signs of European influence appear in the varied postures of the figures and the modeling of robes and dresses. The tiled courtyard with its characteristic interlocking stars and hexagons makes a boldly vibrant background for the central trio of dancers.
Such scenes provided models for the next generation of Mughal artists when depicting the life of Akbar and his Timurid ancestors in the great history manuscripts, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum Akbarnama of c.1590. There the raw and rnouvernente qualities of the earlier work were overlaid by greater compositional elaboration and a more homogeneous refinement of technique.
Mughal, c.1575-80
Gouache with gold on paper; 13.7 x 8.8 em
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.I, f.6v.)
On a garden terrace, tiled with hexagon and star forms, a prince accepts a wine-cup from a maid or concubine. Absorbed in reverie, his head inclined as he smells a flower sprig, he extends a hand which appears to touch hers. His splendid brocade robe bears swirling floral arabesques; her six-pointed dress is of a sheer yellow. The pavilion behind, with its thin sandstone pillars, arabesque carpet, wine-flasks in niches, half-furled curtain and half-open door to an inner chamber, suggests a mood of amorous expectancy; as does the luxuriant garden behind the high red railings, with its slender cypresses paired with sinuous flowering trees and shrubs. While the prince resembles Akbar in early man-hood, both figures are more likely idealised types. Such conventional scenes of the dignified private enjoyment of worldly pleasures are common in the Indo-Persian tradition (16L though less so in Akbar's reign than robuster scenes of public action in durbar halt hunting- field or battleground.
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