Esther before Ahasuerus

Esther Before Ahasuerus is a large painting of 1546–47 by the Venetian painter Tintoretto showing a scene from the Greek addition to the Book of Esther, in which Queen Esther faints during a bold intervention with her husband King Ahasuerus of Persia. In oil on canvas, it measures . Since the 1620s it has been in the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom, and in 2019 it hung in the King's Gallery in Kensington Palace, London. The degree of finish varies considerably between different parts of the painting, which, with the intense colours and dramatic contrasts in lighting, is characteristic of Venetian painting. The orange-yellow pigment orpiment in the robe of the king has altered; it would originally have matched the biblical description of his splendid gold robe. The painting is dated, largely on stylistic grounds, to about 1546–47, relatively early in Tintoretto's career, when he was still in his late twenties. It comes shortly before his first major commission, Saint Mark Rescuing the Slave, now in the Accademia, Venice. The incident The account of the episode including Esther's fainting comes only from the Greek additions to the Book of Esther, or "Rest of Esther", which are Deuterocanonical books, regarded as canonical by the Catholic Church, though relegated to the Biblical apocrypha by Protestant churches. In the Hebrew Bible and Protestant bibles there is no fainting in the Book of Esther; in the latter the additions made in the Septuagint are relegated to the Rest of Esther placed at the end of the book. The decree at the Catholic Council of Trent confirming their canonical status was passed in April 1546, around the time this painting is thought to have been made, which may have a bearing on the choice of subject. The painting shows the moment from Chapter 9:6–8, when Esther goes to see her husband, King Ahasuerus of Persia (often identified as the historical Xerxes I), to intercede for the Jewish people; going into the inner royal court uninvited is punishable by death: