The Spy Zambur Brings Mahiya to the City of Tawariq, from the Hamzanama

A walled town seen from above, all terraces, domes and doorways. Two riders on donkeys come through the streets; one is a woman in a pink veil, with a man on foot beside her. Faces look down from windows and roofs.

The Hamzanama tells the adventures of Amir Hamza, a story long told aloud by professional storytellers, the dastan-go. Akbar ordered it illustrated in about 1562, and the work took some fourteen years. His chronicler counted fourteen hundred illustrations in twelve volumes. They were painted on cotton cloth rather than paper, and they are large: this sheet is 74 centimetres tall. A little over a hundred survive.

The Met gives this page to Kesav Das and Mah Muhammad; no Hamzanama folio found so far is signed. The written text was meant to go alongside the story as storytellers told it aloud.