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The Book of Esther tells how a Jewish queen risked her life to approach the king of Persia uninvited and beg him to spare her people. Tintoretto painted the instant it nearly goes wrong. Esther faints from fear as she comes before King Ahasuerus, her women catching her, while the startled king half-rises from his throne. Painters before him usually showed Esther calm and pleading. Tintoretto chose the swoon, a moment few had dared to picture. He made this around 1547 in Venice, just as he was about to win the commission that made his name. A century later the painting belonged to Charles I of England, and it still hangs in a royal palace, at Hampton Court outside London.