Esther devant Assuérus

By 1655 Poussin had lived in Rome for more than 30 years, a Frenchman who never went home, and he was past 60 when he painted this scene from the Book of Esther. The queen has come before her husband, the Persian king Ahasuerus, without being summoned, to beg him to spare her people from slaughter. Approaching the throne uninvited could cost a life, and Esther faints at the very moment of asking, caught by her attendants. The king leans forward and stretches out his golden scepter, the sign that she is pardoned and may speak. Poussin stages it like a frieze, each figure spaced and still. The canvas has hung in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg since the 18th century.