30 Filippino Lippi
The Queen Vasti Leaves the Royal Palace, c. 1475, tempera on panel
The work originally formed the side panel of a nuptial chest, or “cassone,” realised together with another one, perhaps on commission by the Torrigiani family, in the workshop of Sandro Botticelli after 1472. The six painted panels, today reduced into framed paintings and preserved in different museums around the world, depict episodes in the life of Queen Esther, presented as the model of the virtuous woman. The two side panels are attributed to Sandro Botticelli, as well as a part of the frontal one of the other “cassone.” The remaining painted decoration would have been entrusted by the master to the young Filippino Lippi. The panel of the Museo Horne depicts Queen Vasti, who, having disobeyed her husband Asahuerus’s orders, was repudiated and constrained to abandon the royal palace and the city of Susa. The light, obliquely cutting across the turrets of the castle, seems to accompany the frail figure toward her sad destiny.
