SECOND HALF 16TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY OUDENAARDE

This scene may depict a subject taken from The Story of Esther. Ahasuerus, King of Persia, dismissed his wife Vashti because she had offended him. He chose Esther to take her place, without knowing that she was Jewish. Esther was an orphan and had been brought up by her cousin Mordecai. Haman, the King's chief minister, who was an enemy of Mordecai and who hated the Jews, decreed that all the Jews of the Persian Empire should be massacred. Mordecai asked Esther to intercede. Esther entered into the King's presence without previously having been summoned, which was forbidden under penalty of death. He received her anyway and she led up to the matter by first inviting the King to a banquet where her intercession on behalf of her people succeeded. Haman was hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.

A tapestry with unidentified weaver's mark of identical subject and similar border was sold anonymously in these Rooms, 7 July 1966, lot 158.