Five Studies of Haman’s Head
In five separate sketches, Rembrandt drew the head of a bearded man with long hair and a headband. These may have been studies for Haman, in Rembrandt’s painting Haman before Esther (now in Bucharest). There Haman kneels with bowed head, condemned to death by King Ahasuerus and his wife, Esther (a Jewess), for having ordered all Jews to be killed.