Jacopo Bassano and workshop: The Purification of the Temple (1580)
(National Gallery, London, UK)
A painting by the Italian artist Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592) and his workshop. This piece shows a scene from the Old Testament in which Christ expels the merchants and the money changers from the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The story is told in all four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John):
12. Then Jesus entered the temple[a] and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13 He said to them, “It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.
15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry
16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?”
17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
(Matthew 21:12-17)
Christ can be seen in the left corner using a whip to drive out the merchants out of the temple. In the background the chief priests and the scribes can be seen, and also the blind and lame whom Christ healed. Painting from 1580.
12. Then Jesus entered the temple[a] and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13 He said to them, “It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.
15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry
16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?”
17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
(Matthew 21:12-17)
Christ can be seen in the left corner using a whip to drive out the merchants out of the temple. In the background the chief priests and the scribes can be seen, and also the blind and lame whom Christ healed. Painting from 1580.