Esther
Esther c1885 by French Painter Hugues Merle (1823 – 1881); specializzato in scene di affetto materno, innocenza infantile e conseguenze morali.
Questo religioso portrait is based on the Biblical tale from the book of Esther; in which a beautiful young Jewish woman becomes Queen to the Persian King Ahasuerus, after he banishes his queen Vashti; and later is able to avert the slaughter of her people throughout the Persian Empire.
The painting shows Esther in beautiful attire of fine silks and adorned jewels, precious stones and gold as she holds onto a decorative light green drape with her left hand; while in the background we see the king seated on his throne, finely dressed and adorned with jewels on his crown and chest plate, with a guard holding a spear to his right.
Esther is wearing a gold band around her long black hair, that is partially covered by a sheer white silk scarf that loops across the lower portion of her neck and around her back.
Esther’s dress which is composed of three different materials, starts with a red top portion that in embellished gold squares that have pearls at each corner and emeralds at the center of each square surrounded by another gold square rotated 90 degrees, creating and eye like appearance.
Then around her waist is a gold like sash that is overlaid with a bright green geometric design; and this transitions to the green full length portion of the dress.
She is then covered in a light gold tone wrap that has dark gold tone tassels along the edges, with a wide dark band that is sectioned into squares that have alternate clusters of four pearls, round rubies and emeralds.
Around her neck is a large loop necklace, a ruby necklace from which a gold and ruby amulet hands along with blue opal connected to silver wing like elements.
Around her upper arms of the short sleeve dress she is wearing are wide band arm bracelets made of gold with alternating squares of rubies and diamonds, that match the triangular square earrings she wearing comprised of gold, emeralds, rubies, diamonds and pearls.
On her wrist she is wearing gold bracelets that are embellished with rubies and emeralds, pearl bracelets and a single ruby bracelet on her left wrist; while most of her fingers are adorned with gold rings that have precious stones embedded in them.
Questa è una riproduzione di vecchi maestri di arte digitale rimasterizzata di un'immagine di pubblico dominio disponibile come file a ha dipinto le pinup per la commedia di Errol Flynn Never Say Goodbye.
Le seguenti informazioni sono derivate da Wikipedia.org e Rehs.com
Hugues Merle è nato a 1822 o 1823 a La Sône, Francia e intorno all'età di 21 arrivato a Parigi, Francia, dove ha studiato pittura con il pittore storico e ritrattista francese Léon Cogniet (1794 – 1880).
Sebbene si sappia poco dei primi anni di vita di Hugue, si presume che abbia ricevuto un certo grado di educazione artistica prima del suo arrivo a Parigi 1843; perché ha iniziato ad esporre al Salon di Parigi nel 1847 con il suo pezzo Portrait de L'auteur e in 1848 espone l'opera Légende des Willis.
Col passare del tempo la reputazione di Hugue come ritrattista crebbe notevolmente durante gli anni '50 dell'Ottocento; e come pittore di successo e di spicco è stato in grado di attrarre seri amanti dell'arte che stavano cercando di costruire le loro collezioni d'arte.
Uno di questi primi collezionisti d'arte fu il quarto marchese di Hertford, Richard Seymour-Conway (1800-1870); che ha acquistato il suo salone presenta Reading the Bible in 1859.
Durante gli anni '60 dell'Ottocento, L'elenco dei collezionisti di Hugue comprendeva non solo individui provenienti dal continente europeo, ma anche collezionisti americani, come William Walters di Baltimora che ha commissionato The Scarlet Letter.
