- Title
- Mordecai at the Feet of King Ahasuerus, Folio from the Story of Esther
- Date Made
- circa 1610
- Medium
- Ink with opaque watercolor and gold
- Dimensions
- Image: 4 3/4 x 3 in. (12.07 x 7.62 cm); Sheet: 9 3/8 x 6 3/8 in. (23.81 x 16.19 cm)
- Accession Number
- 39.12.76
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
This copy of a European print was made by an unidentified Mughal artist during the reign of Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627). It depicts the Biblical character Mordecai paying obeisance to King Ahasuerus (or Xerxes I, r. 486-465 BCE), who ruled from the Achaemenid Empire from the Iranian capital of Susa (or Shushan). The story is recounted in the Book of Esther (Chapters 2-10), which is in the third section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Mordecai had refused to bow to the king’s grand vizier, Haman, who out of revenge plotted to kill him along with all the Jewish subjects in Iran. Mordecai appealed to his cousin, Queen Esther, who was secretly Jewish. Esther foils Haman’s plan by interceding with her husband, King Ahasuerus, who then has Haman executed and authorizes the Jews to kill their enemies instead. The Jewish festival of Purim, also called the Day of Mordecai, commemorates this deliverance.
The drawing was likely intended for inclusion in an album and may have faced the page containing the original print of which it was a copy. The golden flowering vines around the two figures, which form a lobed cartouche to emphasize their religious stature, and those in the foreground were probably added later.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya. Indian Painting, vol.1. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993.
