The Story of Esther, Tempera and gold on wood, 17 1/2 x 55 3/8 in. (44. 5 x 140. 7 cm), Paintings, Marco del Buono Giamberti (Italian, Florence 1402?1489 Florence), and Apollonio di Giovanni di Tomaso (Italian, Florence ca. 1416?1465 Florence), Esther, the Jewish queen of the Persian ruler Ahasuerus (Xerxes), provided a template of courage and virtue by saving her countrymen from a plot to kill them. On this front of a chest (cassone) her marriage feast is depicted as though taking place in fifteenth-century Florence