Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple,
oil on canvas, 170 x 199 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

The present composition, with its full length naturalistic figures and the repoussoir device of a bare-chested man who seems to emerge from the picture plane, exhibits the clear influence of Caravaggio. Conversely, the refined folds of drapery and the sculptural feeling of the musculature are indicative of the classicism of the Flemish baroque.

It was in the Low Countries that the first coherent account of the life of Caravaggio was published, describing the artist ‘[…] roaming from one fives court to the next, with a rapier at his side and his servant boy after him, inclined to fight and argue […]’ (Karel van Mander, Schilderboek, Haarlem 1604). Several Flemish followers of Caravaggio emulated the peregrinations of their idol, making their way to Naples and Rome. Chief among them were Matthias Stom, Theodoor Rombouts and Louis Finson, as well as hands which are currently unidentified, such as ‘Giusto Fiammingo.’

Caravaggio’s great contemporary Bartolomeo Manfredi, whose works many early connoisseurs found indistinguishable from those of Caravaggio, also painted the subject of the Cleansing of the Temple (circa 1615, Metropolitan Museum, New York), which in turn was treated by Valentine de Boulogne (circa 1618, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome).

Inherent to those works is the quality of dynamic movement and the sense of tactility lent by the various textures of flesh and the costume of the bustling figural groups. In the present lot, these attributes are developed with a greater sense of immediacy and realism that is characteristically Northern. These details range from the wicker of the bird cage to the weave of the rope flail in Christ’s hand, foreshadowing his later flagellation at the column – another Caravaggesque theme.