Esther’s Eastern milieu, exotic to Dutch artists and patrons then trading with the Safavid Empire, was an attractive subject ...

The winner was Esther, who was Jewish. After becoming queen, she helped to foil the evil designs of the king’s advisor, Haman, to kill the Jews, and thus saved her people.

Fortunately, the show includes a rarely lent masterwork from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — Rembrandt’s “Self-Portrait, Age 23” (1629) which has nothing to do with Queen ...

Esther’s Eastern milieu, exotic to Dutch artists and patrons then trading with the Safavid Empire, was an attractive subject ripe for Rembrandt’s innovations.