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Esther Before Ahasuerus
Inscriptions
Signed and dated, lower left: D f francken [inv.] et f. Antw / A° 1622
Provenance
Possibly Suzanna Bernoille (died 1649), Antwerp by 1629 [Duverger 1987, p. 156, Doc. 670 and Duverger 1992, pg. 39, Doc. 1580]. Possibly Jan van Meurs (1583–1652), Antwerp [Duverger 1992, p. 267, Doc. 1745, p. 296, Doc. 1769]. Probably Edmund Larken, Esq. (1766–1831), London [this and the following according to annotated sales catalogue at the Getty Research Institute; copy in curatorial file]; sold, his estate sale, Christie & Manson, London, June 16–17, 1831, lot 91 to “Ewart”. Private collection, Belgium; sold, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, May 9, 2006, lot 11, to Johnny van Haeften, London; sold to The Leiden Collection, New York, 2006 [this and the following according to email correspondence from Salomon Lilian, July 30, 2025; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Salomon Lilian, Geneva, 2023; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2025.
Exhibition history
New York, The Jewish Museum, The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, March 7–August 10, 2025, no cat no.; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, September 20, 2025–March 8, 2026; Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, August 6, 2026–January 18, 2027 (New York only).
Publications
L. Scott Lerner, “Les « Fils » d’Esther: À la recherche du temps perdu comme micro-littérature,” MLN 133 (September 2018), 849–850, fig. 5. Salomon Lilian: Dutch Old Master Paintings (Amsterdam, 2024), no. 1, 4–9. Abigail Rapoport with Michele L. Frederick, The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. (New York, The Jewish Museum, 2025), 116–117, ill.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Frans Francken II (Flemish, 1581–1642)
- Date
- 1622
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 73.5 × 112.8 cm (28 15/16 × 44 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- oil on panel
- Style
- 17th Century
- Place
- Flanders
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- In memory of a young boy who delighted in the story of Esther and of all those he loved and who love him
- Accession no.
- 2025.261
More by Frans Francken II in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00001774
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