PROVENANCE: Probably Count Horace St. Paul, Ewart Park, Wooler, near Berwick-on-Tweed, England, late 18th century; by descent to Maria St. Paul, wife of George Grey Butler, c. 1900; Tomas Harris, London, 1951; BJU, 1951.

Luca Giordano remains one of the most celebrated 17th-century artists, not only for his grand compositions and projects, but also for his prolific output of over 5,000 works (hence, the nickname "fa presto," which means "works fast"). One of Luca's first teachers in Naples was Jusepe Ribera, but his travels throughout Italy brought inspiration from works by Rubens, Veronese, and Pietro da Cortona. The greatest achievements of his career are the numerous decorative cycles he created for churches and public buildings.

Christ Cleansing the Temple is heralded as one of Giordano's most important paintings in America . The sublime golden tone that illuminates the work reflects Giordano's trip to Venice, whose seaside light made such an impression that the artist painted in a so-called maniera dorata (golden manner) for a number of years afterwards. These Venetian influences are here combined with facial types and a muted and sketchy background inspired by Mattia Preti.

Matthew 21:12 records that Jesus "overthrew the tables of the moneychangers" because they had made God's house of worship a "den of thieves." Giordano masterfully animates the narrative's sequence of events through the combined effects of repeated forms, strong diagonals, and looseness of brushwork. Thus, he communicates the emotional and physical force of Christ's driving out the moneychangers in righteous indignation in a manner virtually unmatched among his contemporaries.