The painting Ahasveros and Haman at the Feast of Esther is one of the few works of Rembrandt van Rijn whose complete provenance is known.

Esther lowers her arms apprehensively as she finishes her speech, the king's lips are pursed in anger, and Haman's pose reveals a sense of doom.

Haman, councillor to the king Ahasuerus, proposed to hang Mordechai for not paying him respect by standing as he entered the room or by greeting him, and the entire Jewish nation as revenge for their pride.

[3]Rembrandt was inspired by the play Hester, by Johannes Serwouters (1623-1677), when painting Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther.

In 1760 Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther was sold as number 45 at an auction, listed as coming from Nicolaes Geelvinck, and organized after the death of Gerard Hoet, a minor painter but important collector in The Hague.

[9] In 1764 the painting came to Catherine the Great, most probably through the German entrepreneur Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky, in financial trouble after the Seven Years' War.