Esther (1865) is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting the central character from the Biblical Book of Esther. It is from Millais's Aesthetic phase, when he was influenced by the work of Frederic Leighton and James McNeill Whistler. The painting depicts Esther, the Jewish wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus, as she prepares to enter the presence of her husband. As she is uninvited, she risks death, but does so to inform him of a plot against the Jews.