Esther and Ahasuerus

In 1573 the Venetian Inquisition summoned Veronese to explain why a Last Supper he had painted was crowded with dwarfs, drunkards and German soldiers. He answered that painters take the same liberties as poets, and settled the matter by renaming the canvas Feast in the House of Levi. He did not change the habit. The Persian palace in this picture comes with columns, balconies and a crowd of courtiers, and the story inside it is the moment the Jewish queen enters the king's presence without being summoned, which carried a death sentence, and faints at his feet. The canvas runs over three metres wide. It entered the French royal collection under Louis XIV and is listed as a Veronese in the crown inventory of 1683. The Louvre allows that his brother Benedetto Caliari may have worked on it, and hangs it in the room built for the Mona Lisa.