Item #32283 The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India. John Wiliam Seyller.
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India
The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India

The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India

Washington DC: Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2002. Softcover. Color illustrated wraps with yellow lettering, orange French flaps, 320 pp., color illustrations throughout. VG- (minor creasing in spine, previous owner's inscription on inside cover, all pages clear and intact). Item #32283
ISBN: 9781898592235

"The Hamzanama (Adventures of Hamza) is a series of fantastic tales based loosely on the exploits of Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, who traveled the world spreading the teachings of Islam. The narrative tells of giants, demons, and dragons; of abductions and hair-raising chases; and of believers and infidels. The excitement of the tales was best captured in public recitations of coffeehouses from Iran to northern India. Each recitation was given a particular flavor by the storyteller, who departed freely from the written text, which also varies in structure and detail from manuscript to manuscript. An illustrated version of the Hamzanama was commissioned early in the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) by the teenage emperor himself. Comprising 1,400 large illustrations, it was the earliest and most ambitious product of the royal painting ateller. The size of the paintings - more than two feet high - and their sometimes broad and animated style can be explained by their role in complementing the recitations at court. Just over a tenth of the total number of paintings of this magnificent manuscript survive today. This book brings togehter over sixty of the greatest of these illustrations from collections all over the world, and places them alongside new translations of the related text passages. Narrative aspects of the text as exmined in depth, and the Hamzanama's pivotal role in the development of Mughal painting in India is explored." - dust jacket description.

OCLC: 49619013

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