''The Toilette of Esther'' or ''Esther Preparing to be Presented to King Ahasuerus'', is an 1841 oil-on-canvas painting by
Théodore Chassériau
Théodore Chassériau (September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856) was a Dominican-born French Romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Alger ...
. The painting depicts a moment from the scriptural Book of Esther, when Esther prepared to meet
King Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus ( ; , commonly ''Achashverosh'';; fa, اخشورش, Axšoreš; fa, label=New Persian, خشایار, Xašāyār; grc, Ξέρξης, Xérxēs. grc, label=Koine Greek, Ἀσουήρος, Asouḗros, in the Septuagint; la, Assuerus ...
, ruler of Persia, who subsequently took her as his wife. The painting is in the
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...
has described it as "one of the most famous (paintings) in the Louvre".Guégan 145
Narrative
The subject derives from the Book of Esther (2:8-9, 15), in which King Ahasuerus, having renounced his wife
Vashti
Vashti ( he, , translit=Vaštī; ; ) was a queen of Persia and the first wife of Persian king Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, a book included within the Tanakh and the Old Testament which is read on the Jewish holiday of Purim. She was either e ...
, seeks a new queen. Esther, a woman of great beauty, finds favor with
Hegai Hegai is a character from the Book of Esther, chapter 2, verses 8 & 15. He is a eunuch placed in charge of Ahasuerus's harem
Harem ( Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; f ...
, the eunuch responsible for preparing women for presentation to the king. Upon seeing Esther, Ahasuerus chooses her as his wife. She later reveals that she is Jewish, and intercedes with the king in order to spare the lives of the empire's Jews.
While choosing a biblical theme as a subject, it is likely that Chassériau drew upon more recent literary sources for inspiration. The play ''
Esther
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...
'', produced by
Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...
in 1689, offers a more chaste version of Esther's seduction, while describing the artifice employed by her rivals for the king's attention.Guégan 142 The exoticism of the painting is closer to an 1817 poem by
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet and early French Romanticist. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare.
Biography
Vigny was born in Loches (a town to which he never r ...
entitled ''Le Bain d'une dame romaine'', which includes the description:
:A slave from Egypt, her skin glistening and black,
:Presents her, kneeling, with the pure steel of the mirror,
:To tie up her hair, a virgin from Greece,
:In Isis's compass joins her two braids....Guégan 142
and is reminiscent also of ''
Les Orientales
''Les Orientales'' is a collection of poems by Victor Hugo, inspired by the Greek War of Independence. They were first published in January 1829.
Of the forty-one poems, thirty-six were written during 1828. They offer a series of highly coloured ...
'' by
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
:
:Have I not, for you, lovely Jewess,
:Sufficiently emptied my seraglio?Guégan 142
The episode had rarely been painted before. Only two previous versions are known: a 17th-century painting by
Aert de Gelder
Aert de Gelder ( or Arent; October 26, 1645 – August 27, 1727) was a Dutch painter.Jean-Francois de Troy.Guégan 145 Given the dearth of pictorial illustrations of the story, Chassériau would have looked to paintings of women at their toilette, including depictions of Venus, of which there were more numerous examples.Guégan 145
Description
Esther is shown seated at the center of the canvas, arms above her head as she arranges her blond coiffure. Preparing to offer herself for the king's approval, she holds a pose that is "profoundly erotic in its pictorial treatment".Guégan 145 She is nude to the waist except for a necklace and bracelets on her arms; her legs are swathed in white- and rose-colored garments. At the left a servant woman dressed in rich blue brings accessories, and at the right Hegai, clad in bright red, offers a jewel box. Esther acknowledges neither of them, staring out of the picture to the left. Behind them is a landscape of trees and sky.
Several preparatory studies exist. Two drawings in the Louvre evidence an initially circular composition, a tondo like ''
The Turkish Bath
''The Turkish Bath'' (') is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862. The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in a harem. It has an erotic style that evokes ...
'' that Chassériau's teacher Ingres would paint in 1862.Guégan 145 Such experiments underscore Chassériau's desire to find original motifs, as he wrote alongside a drawing at the time: "....Put...the history...of the world in a new way...allowing one to see these beautiful things once again by presenting them in a fresh manner. May 1841. For my painting Esther preparing her toilette".Guégan 145 The lush accessories and overall coloring owe something to Chassériau's admiration for
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
.Louvre /ref>
Art historians have long noted Chassériau's affection for his sisters, and their subconscious influence on the female figures in his art.Guégan 70 Perhaps drawing on the recollection of Chassériau's mistress Clémence Monnerot, who said "Adèle has superb arms; they appear everywhere", Jean-Louis Vaudoyer believed that the beauty of the artist's older sister could be found in Esther's "muscular, almost masculine, arms".Guégan 70
Exoticism
The choice of an Old Testament story about a young woman in a harem freed Chassériau to take advantage of Orientalist and Romantic elements. The presence of Asian figures and sumptuous jewelry serves to further eroticize Esther's figure.Guégan 145 Having previously painted a ''Birth of Venus'' and a ''Susanna and the Elders'', Chassériau found another theme which permitted a frankly sexual presentation of the female body.Guégan 142, 145
The painting was not fully understood when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1842. If the critics recognized an insipidness in Esther's expression—one journalist complained "But why that elongated figure, those wild eyes, that savage look? There is no soul under that face..."—they failed to properly appreciate the originality of a biblical story re-imagined in an erotic, Romantic fashion.Guégan 145 The painting would later inspire painters such as
François-Léon Benouville
François-Léon Benouville (Paris 30 March 1821 – 16 February 1859 Paris) was a French painter noted for his Neoclassical religious compositions and for painting Orientalist subjects.
Life and career
Léon Benouville first studied with hi ...
and
Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.' ...
.Guégan 145
''The Toilette of Esther'' was bequeathed to the Louvre in 1934 by Baron Arthur Chassériau, a distant relative of the artist, as part of a donation that included most of the artist's work in his possession.
Notes
References
*Guégan, Stéphane, et al. ''Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856): The Unknown Romantic''. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002.