Scipione Pistrucci was initiated into art studies by his father Filippo, a painter, engraver and poet himself; he soon became a pupil of Luigi Sabatelli attending his lessons at the Brera Academy in Milan from 1830 to 1833, when due to his political ideas and his closeness to Giovine Italia he was forced to flee to Geneva where he met Giuseppe Mazzini and become one of his closest collaborators. From that moment on, his participation in the Risorgimento uprisings had as reference points the circles of exiles in Switzerland, France and finally in London.

Mazzini himself mentioned Pistrucci in his correspondence as the “young painter” who distinguished himself for his fidelity when he was sent to central Italy to hord new insurrectional plans.

He arrived in Spoleto in 1849 under a false name and in an official capacity as an artist he was at the head of a revolutionary Umbrian committee, gathering veterans of previous enterprises and setting up a clandestine printing unit for propaganda purposes.

He stayed in town until August 1852 when, to escape yet another arrest, he was forced to move first to Tuscany, then to Genoa and finally to Lugano, where he arrived in serious health conditions.

The large canvas depicting Esther and Asahuerus was purchased by the City of Spoleto in 1922 from Gina Pistrucci Meli, daughter of the painter who a few years earlier had donated her father’s Self-portrait and the Portrait of his son Adelchi also on display at the main floor of Palazzo Collicola.

Pistrucci with this composition of history should have participated in the Brera competition in 1833 and was still working there when he was forced to leave Italy in September of that year.

Despite being an early work and therefore linked to the classicist lesson of his master Luigi Sabatelli, the painter here shows considerable freedom by approaching the biblical theme and its drama with a participation not far from the romantic ferment.