Mordecai overhears a conspiracy to murder King Ahasuerus hatched by two of his courtiers; the episode is told in the Old Testament book of Esther (II, 21).

Though bearing a false signature ‘GDou’, this is probably the work of Willem de Poorter, a painter from Haarlem much influenced by Rembrandt’s early work and possibly his pupil. Two richly dressed men stand talking in arched entrance to a temple, which is flanked by a stone statue of a warrior with shield. In the shadows to the right a third man, dressed in a voluminous cloak and with bare feet, sits listening to the conversation.