Esther, Ahasuerus, and Haman

Jan Steen staged the banquet scene from the Book of Esther at its most theatrical moment, when the kneeling queen denounces the wicked Haman before the startled King Ahasuerus. Painted in the later 1660s, the picture shows the Dutch artist’s love of crowded, expressive drama: rich stuffs, a dog at the king’s foot and a party of court figures framed beneath a grand canopy, everything animated by a stage-director’s energy. Beneath the bustle, the whole scene turns on the tension of the coming judgment, treated with the same relish for narrative that made Steen’s domestic scenes so beloved.