Esther, a woman of great beauty, finds favor with Hegai, the eunuch responsible for preparing women for presentation to the king.

[1] Given the dearth of pictorial illustrations of the story, Chassériau would have looked to paintings of women at their toilette, including depictions of Venus, of which there were more numerous examples.

At the left a servant woman dressed in rich blue brings accessories, and at the right Hegai, clad in bright red, offers a jewel box.

Two drawings in the Louvre evidence an initially circular composition, a tondo like The Turkish Bath that Chassériau's teacher Ingres would paint in 1862.

[1] Such experiments underscore Chassériau's desire to find original motifs, as he wrote alongside a drawing at the time: "....Put...the history...of the world in a new way...allowing one to see these beautiful things once again by presenting them in a fresh manner.

[1] Having previously painted a Birth of Venus and a Susanna and the Elders, Chassériau found another theme which permitted a frankly sexual presentation of the female body.

If the critics recognized an insipidness in Esther's expression—one journalist complained "But why that elongated figure, those wild eyes, that savage look?