(Antwerp active in the first half of the 16th Century)
The Feast of Ahasuerus (Esther 1, 1–12),
oil on panel, 117 x 162.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Prof. Fischel, Wiesbaden, in 1937;
Del Drago collection, Rome;
Federico Zeri collection, Mentana (Rome);
Private European collection

The present painting is listed in the RKD database under no. 0000073603 (as The Master of Paul and Barnabas).

We are grateful to Peter van den Brink for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot. He considers this work to be a significant addition to the oeuvre of the Master of Paul and Barnabas.

The moniker of The Master of Paul and Barnabas derives from a painting on panel by Pieter Aertsen in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, representing The Miracle of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (inv. no. 4315). In fact, in 1976 Mary Braman Buchan suggested that Aertsen made use of an anonymous assistant for some of the figures and the background and she gives to this unknown painter the moniker to recognise him (see M. Braman Buchan, The paintings of Pieter Aersten, in: Marsyas, 1976, no. 18, p. 45). The Master of Paul and Barnabas has sometimes been identified as the painter Jan Mandijn, who assisted Jan Sanders van Hemessen in painting the smaller figures in his works.

The Master of Paul and Barnabas combined two artistic currents in his work. Firstly, the Flemish painterly tradition that is evident in his careful rendering of detail; secondly, the influence of Raphael, which the Master could have seen either in the artist’s cartoons, which had recently arrived in Brussels, or through a possible visit to Italy (see N. Dacos, Cartons et dessins raphaélesques à Bruxelles: l’action de Rome aux Pays – Bas, in: Bollettino d’arte, 1997, vol. 100, pp. 7-8). Furthermore, he was also clearly aware of the current developments emerging at the time in Antwerp, from artists such as Pieter Aertsen, Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Pieter Coecke van Aelst.

The elongated figures in the present picture, although typical of the Master, are in fact larger than those that appear in his other known compositions. The exceptional attention given to the architecture and the manner in which it divides the composition may be compared to The healing of the lame man of Capernaum, in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 12065). The larger figures in the present panel illustrate a more precise scrutiny of the figures’ physiognomy, their scale allowing a greater expression of details: the curls of their hair, the figures’ faces and their gestures.

The present painting is a rare representation of the Biblical story of the feast of king Ahasuerus told in the Book of Esther (1: 1-2). It depicts the moment when King Ahasuerus, seated at a banquet on the right, is refused by his queen, Vashti, who declines to make a show of her beauty before his guests. She can be seen resisting the exhortation of a group of men outside the logia on the far left of the composition. Thus, as a result of the rejection, the King chooses another to be his new wife, the dazzling Esther, who is represented in the gilded medallion set on high in the royal palace. The subject of the Feast of Ahasuerus, and its union between the Persian king and the Jewish Esther, two different peoples, became a popular subject in Habsburg lands during the 16th century due to the periodic peace negotiations between the Holy Roman and the Ottoman Empires.