Bernardo Cavallino, 'Christ driving the Traders from the Temple', about 1645-50

Angry to find that the Temple of Jerusalem was like a market because of the money-changers and dove-sellers there, Christ drove them out using a whip (Matthew 21: 12–13; Mark 11: 15–18; Luke 19: 45–6; John 2: 14–17). Here he is poised in the centre, right arm raised above his head, about to strike a money-changer who has fallen on one knee. His table has tipped over, scattering the tools of its owner’s profession: coins spill out of a blue bag, and an inkpot, quill pen and papers have been knocked to the ground.

Sometimes called the Purification of the Temple, this subject took on great significance in the sixteenth century, when the Catholic Church initiated a series of self-imposed reforms in response to the Protestant Reformation. Another example from our collection is El Greco’s Christ driving the Traders from the Temple, whose composition is equally full of movement and Christ, dressed in red and blue, plays a pivotal role at its centre.

The drama and subtle colouring of the work are typical of Bernardino Cavallino, the most individual and poetic painter active in Naples in the first half of the seventeenth century. Described in the eighteenth century as ‘the Poussin of Naples’, he is best known for his small cabinet pictures of biblical subjects or themes taken from classical history.

Around 80 paintings by him survive, but documentary evidence for his life and work is almost non-existent and the complex sources of his highly personal style remain obscure. He seems to have blended Ribera’s intensely observed naturalism with an awareness of the works of Van Dyck and Rubens, both of whom were represented in collections in Naples, and of the later Italian works of Simon Vouet. His style has been particularly related to that of his Neapolitan contemporary Antonio De Bellis.

Cavallino’s lively multi-figure compositions are highly theatrical in pose and expression: he had a taste for subjects where figures engage in violent emotional confrontation, as here, and his paintings have been described as like vignettes from plays, in which figures are caught mid-action. They feature Caravaggio-like contrasts of light and shade, with illumination striking one part of the body but leaving the rest in shadow, as on the back of the man in the left foreground. Cavallino studied closely details of everyday life – here the beautifully observed black-and-white dove provides a moment of stillness in an otherwise action-packed scene.

This picture is thought to be a mature work, dating to about 1645–50. Many of Cavallino’s pictures were produced as part of a series, or in pairs, and were destined both for private patrons and the open market. The pendant to this picture may be Cavallino’s Procession to Calvary in the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia. The two canvases are of similar dimensions and both compositions are structured around Christ in the centre, with bystanders nearby and two seated or standing figures in the corners who turn in towards the action – a clever device drawing us into the picture with them.