Image: The Toilette of Esther or La toilette d'Esther, an 1841 oil-on-canvas painting by French romantic painter Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856), with dimensions 45.5 cm x 35.5 cm (17.9” x 14.0”), presently located in Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
The Toilette of Esther depicts an incident from the Book of Esther, when Esther prepared herself to meet the ruler of Persia King Ahasuerus, who subsequently married her.
The theme of the painting is derived from the Book of Esther (2:8-9, 15), in which King Ahasuerus seeks a new queen after renouncing his wife Vashti. Esther, a woman of great beauty, finds favor with Hegai, the eunuch in charge of preparing women for presentation to the king. After seeing Esther, Ahasuerus chooses her as his wife. She later reveals that she is Jewish, and wanted the king to spare the lives of the Jews in his empire.
The choice of this Old Testament story about a young woman in a harem freed Chassériau to take advantage of elements of the Orientalist and Romantic movements. The presence of Asian women and ample jewelry further romanticizes Esther’s figure. Having previously painted a ‘Birth of Venus’ and a ‘Susanna and the Elders’, Chassériau found another theme in Esther which permitted a frankly sensual presentation of the female body.
It has been noted by art historians that the painting, ‘The Toilette of Esther’, later inspired painters such as François-Léon Benouville and Gustave Moreau. Vincent Pomarède of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon described the work as ‘one of the most famous (paintings) in the Louvre’.
No comments:
Post a Comment