A fact from The Toilette of Esther appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 May 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Why is she blonde? Blonde semitic people are quite rare, even today, and even then usually because they have some north European blood in them. 5th century BC Jews were nearly 100% dark-haired. The painter should've known better. --209.203.104.2 (talk) 23:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
I don't think the artist was striving for narrative or historical accuracy, which I think the article explains. A biblical story was used as a foundation upon which he could build an exotic presentation--such liberties are not uncommon in art. More bothersome is that the article relies almost entirely on the only book I have on Chassériau; more sources would be welcome. JNW (talk) 02:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
Evidently, that was a common liberty among artists of past. Da Vinci even painted St. John with blond hair in his "Last Supper". Sorry, can't help you much with sources. There's a large number of references in the French-language version of the article on Chasseriau. --Itinerant1 (talk) 10:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
