How does this artwork elucidate its Exoticism?
The choice of an Old Testament story about a young woman in a harem freed Chassériau to take advantage of Orientalist and Romantic elements. The presence of Asian figures and sumptuous jewelry serves to further eroticize Esther's figure. 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.The painting was not fully understood when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1842. If the critics recognized an insipidness in Esther's expression—one journalist complained "But why that elongated figure, those wild eyes, that savage look? There is no soul under that face..."—they failed to properly appreciate the originality of a biblical story re-imagined in an erotic, Romantic fashion. The painting would later inspire painters such as François-Léon Benouville and Gustave Moreau.The Toilette of Esther was bequeathed to the Louvre in 1934 by Baron Arthur Chassériau, a distant relative of the artist, as part of a donation that included most of the artist's work in his possession.
Arthur Chassériau Romantic Paris Salon Esther Orientalist François-Léon Benouville Louvre Paris Old Testament Gustave Moreau