Pre/Early Modern Forum presents Abigail Rapoport (The Jewish Museum)

Abigail Rapoport presents a lecture titled, “The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt.” The Book of Esther from the Hebrew Bible was ever-present in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. This talk will provide an overview of the current exhibition The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt. Featuring over 120 works, including paintings, prints, and drawings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) as well as Jewish ceremonial art—especially Esther scrolls—decorative objects, books and theatrical plays, this exhibition illustrates how the biblical queen influenced Dutch art and culture.

The Book of Esther became part of the cultural and intellectual environment in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands more broadly as immigrant Jewish communities established their presence there throughout the 1600s along with an expanding Christian population. For the country’s Jewish immigrants—who had the liberty to celebrate Purim more openly in the Netherlands than in their previous homelands—the Book of Esther became a symbol of freedom in their new lives. For the Dutch, Queen Esther’s heroism against oppression represented their own emerging nation’s identity in their fight for freedom from Spanish rule.

The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, co-organized with the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, is on view at the Jewish Museum from March 7 through August 10, 2025. It will travel to North Carolina in September 2025 and a condensed version will be presented at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in August 2026.

Abigail Rapoport is the Curator of Judaica at the Jewish Museum in New York.