3-017-330 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Esther's Banquet", by E. Armitage, from the Liverpool Exhibition of Fine Arts, 1865. Engraving of a painting. 'Esther [was] one of the maidens selected for their beauty to be submitted to the King that he might choose a successor to the disobedient and disgraced Queen...At the banquet Esther supplicates for her own life and that of her people; she discovers to the King the design of the wicked Haman...Upon the Queen proclaiming the murderous treachery of Haman, occurs the following passage (Esther vii. 7, 8), which we give, it having been quoted by Mr. Armitage, in the Academy catalogue, in connection with his picture: "And the King arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the Queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the King. Then the King returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen on the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the King, Will he force the Queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the King's mouth they covered Haman's face".' From "Illustrated London News", 1865.