He rides in a robe and a tall hat.
Bible in art · Esther
The Triumph of Mordecai
Lucas van Leyden · 1515
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Lucas van Leyden engraved this plate in Leiden in 1515. The crowd presses close round the rider, and every face is different.
Mordecai rides through the square on a fine horse, wearing a robe and a tall hat. A man in a tall turban walks at the horse’s head, and a trumpeter blows a long horn. Townspeople watch and point. On a far hill stands a gallows.
From the text
- Haman took the robe and the horse and arrayed Mordecai (Esther 6:11)
- “This is what is done for the man whom the king is delighted to honor!” (Esther 6:11)
- Haman was hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai (Esther 7:10)
The artist’s own
- A trumpeter with a long horn at the head of the parade
- A crowd of Lucas’s townspeople — a kneeling man with a basket, a boy, soldiers
- The gallows on the hill, from a later part of the story
Details
Mordecai
Leading the horse
A man in a tall turban walks at the horse’s head — Haman, by the story.
The trumpeter
A long horn sounds out the king’s words.
The gallows
A tiny gallows on a distant hill.
Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, c. 1489/94–1533. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5621) · Engraving · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)