The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented book page illustrating water flowing over muted blue, peach, purple, and green rocks towards people with light to medium-light skin tones and camels on the banks. In the water swim an ox, horse, and person. Atop the rocks, right of the waterfall, stands Alamshah, a man with light skin tone, sword raised. Opposite the rocks, another with light skin tone lies upside down, blood dripping from a horizontal gash on his chest and a wheel with a chain connecting to a round, dark brown plug above him.

Alamshah cleaving asunder the chain of the wheel, from volume 11 of a Hamza-nama (Adventures of Hamza)

c. 1560s–70s

Mughal India, court of Akbar

(reigned 1556–1605)
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on cotton and paper
Page: 83.7 x 67 cm (32 15/16 x 26 3/8 in.)
Gift of George P. Bickford 1976.74
Location: 242B Indian Painting

Did You Know?

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

Description

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.
  • Tabbagh
    ?–1976
    George Bickford [1901–1991] and Clara Louise Gehring Bickford [1903–1985], Cleveland Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1976–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1976.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 2 (February 1977): 39–78. Mentioned: p. 79, no. 149; Reproduced: p. 60 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 303 archive.org
    Leach, Linda York. Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1986. cat. no. 10
    Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 170–171
    Sporre, Dennis J. The Creative Impulse: An Introduction to the Arts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 327, no. 11.8
    Seyller, John William, and W. M. Thackston. The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, 2002. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 51, pp.162–163, R78, p. 266
    Sporre, Dennis J. The Creative Impulse: An Introduction to the Arts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 332, no. 11.19
    Douglass, Scott, and Dennis J. Sporre. The Creative Impulse. Seventh Edition. Seventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2006. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 322, fig. 10.18
    Franklin, David and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 174–175
    Quintanilla, Sonya Rhie. "From the Fifth Vizier's Story to the Gifts of Timur: Mughal Paintings by Sravana in the Cleveland Museum of Art." Orientations: The Magazine for Collectors and Connoisseurs of Asian Art, November/December 2013, pp. 13–18. Mentioned and Reproduced: fig. 5
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 211–212
    “A Walking Tour: The entire new museum wing by wing, with curators calling out a few favorite works in the collection.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 54, no. 1 (January/February 2014): 8–33. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 33 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum Masters: 2016-17 Companion Guide. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 35
  • Indian Painting of the 1500s: Continuities and Transformations. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 15, 2025-January 11, 2026).
    Martial Art of India. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 11-August 21, 2022).
    Art and Stories from Mughal India. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 31-October 23, 2016).
    Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 245). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 31, 2013–June 30, 2014).
    The Adventures of Hamza. National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (June 21-September 29, 2002); The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (November 1, 2002-January 26, 2003).
    The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).
    Year in Review, 1976. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 1-March 6, 1977).
  • {{cite web|title=Alamshah cleaving asunder the chain of the wheel, from volume 11 of a Hamza-nama (Adventures of Hamza)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1560s–70s|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1976.74