Lot 33
GLÜCK, Heinrich.
DIE INDISCHEN MINIATUREN DES HAEMZAE-ROMANES IM ÖSTERREISCHEN MUSEUM FÜR KUNST UND INDUSTRIE IN WIEN UND IN ANDEREN SAMMLUNGEN
Auction: 10 December 2025 from 14:00 GMT
Description
Folio, with many plates including 10 in colour, original dark blue cloth lettered in gilt, in original dust-jacket. Zurich, Amalthea-Verlag, [circa 1925]
Plates by Max Jaffe, Vienna. First edition in superb original condition, about Indian miniature paintings from the Hamzanama in The Austrian museum of Art and Industry in Vienna and other private collections.
Dimensions
48.8cm x 36cm
Footnote
This is one of the finest copies to come to the market in recent years and a rare opportunity to acquire an academic work relating to the Hamzanama, an illustrated Mughal manuscript commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) in the mid-sixteenth century. Taking fifteen years to complete, the story tells the story of the Prophet's uncle Hamza. There was originally fourteen hundred illustrations executed by the eldest of Akbar's court artists with the paintings being usually large in size with text on reverse. As Akbar was illiterate, it was the custom for his courtiers to hold the paintings before the ruler and read the tales from the reverse. Roughly two hundred illustrations survive today with the majority of the paintings in The Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna.