Есфирь

Esther is the biblical queen steeling herself to walk uninvited into the Persian king's throne room, a move that could cost her life, to plead for her people. Millais painted her in 1865, and the astonishing yellow robe has a strange, very recent history. It was a Chinese imperial yellow jacket, given to the British officer Charles Gordon by the emperor's court after he helped crush the Taiping Rebellion. Millais borrowed it, then turned it inside out so the dragons and insignia dissolved into pure abstract pattern. Around it he set deep blue drapery and pale columns, the strong colour contrasts he was chasing in these years alongside Whistler and Leighton. Esther gathers her hair up in both raised hands, bracing herself in the last second before the door.