Marcello Venusti, 'The Purification of the Temple', after 1550

The Purification of the Temple

Marcello Venusti

Not on display

About the work

Overview

The subject of the Purification of the Temple is taken from the New Testament (Matthew 21: 12–13). Jesus drove the traders out of the Temple in Jerusalem, accusing them of turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves.

Venusti painted numerous small-scale copies of drawings and frescoes by Michelangelo. No finished drawing by Michelangelo is known for this composition, but there are surviving small sketches of the figures. In Venusti’s painting, although the drama is centred on Jesus and the crowd of figures, the majority of the composition is devoted to the architecture, for which there is no known drawing. The pillars are modelled on famous antique examples in the Basilica of St Peter’s in Rome, which were believed to have come from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

In 1549 Venusti was commissioned by Pope Paul III to decorate the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican, however the Pope died and the project was suspended. Our painting may be a small version to commemorate this never executed fresco project.

In-depth

The subject of the Purification of the Temple is taken from the New Testament (Matthew 21: 12–13). After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ went to the Temple where he found it occupied by money changers and traders. He accused them of turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves and drove them out.

In Venusti’s painting, the menorah candles lit on the altar make it clear that this is the Jewish Temple. Jesus rushes into the crowd brandishing a whip above his head. He lifts one end of the money changers’ table causing gold coins to spill off the other end onto the floor. Another pot of gold on the ground is overturned in the commotion.

According to Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, Venusti, who was a talented associate of Michelangelo, painted numerous small-scale copies of drawings and frescoes by him. Michelangelo is known to have made and given away drawings for works which were subsequently painted by other artists. No finished drawing by Michelangelo is known for this composition, but there are surviving small sketches of the figures. One is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and three more detailed sketches are in the British Museum, London, of which the largest contains all the figures but not the architectural background of the National Gallery’s painting.

Although the drama of the scene is centred on Jesus and the crowd of figures, the majority of the painting is devoted to the architecture. The design was very carefully and meticulously inscribed using compass and ruler before painting began. The figure group is dwarfed by the huge scale of the classical interior with its opulent decorations of coloured marble. Michelangelo was an accomplished architect as well as a painter and sculptor, and worked on the designs for St Peter’s in Rome. There is no known drawing for the architecture in the National Gallery’s painting, but the pillars are modelled on famous antique examples presented to the Basilica of St Peter’s in Rome by Emperor Constantine I (about 272–337 AD). Giacomo della Porta was the first architect to use marble inlay in St Peter’s, in the Cappella Gregoriana (1572–85). Venusti’s architecture in the Purification is more in the spirit of Della Porta than Michelangelo’s architectural designs, and it is likely that his painting was made around the time that Della Porta was working in the Cappella Gregoriana.

In 1549 Venusti was commissioned by Pope Paul III to decorate the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican, and began to make cartoons with the agreement of Michelangelo. In November 1549 the Pope died and the project was suspended. The subject Venusti appears to have been drawing for the chapel was Christ driving out the Money Changers, also known as The Purification of the Temple, and it is possible that our painting is a small version to commemorate this never executed fresco project.

This composition may have influenced El Greco in his representations of the Purification of the Temple, one of which is in the National Gallery’s collection. However, it seems that El Greco’s version is more of a critique of Michelangelo’s design as painted by Venusti rather than a salute to it, as only the basic arrangement is similar.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Purification of the Temple
Artist: Marcello Venusti
Artist dates: born 1512-15; died 1579
Date made: after 1550
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 61 × 40 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1885
Inventory number: NG1194
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

In Scipione Borghese’s collection by 1633, and thence by descent; acquired from Prince Marcantonio III Borghese (1733-1800) in 1798 (during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, probably through the Scottish miniature painter and art dealer Alexander Day (1745-1841) and the Roman picture restorer and dealer Pietro Camuccini (1760-1833) by the French war commissioner Henri-Paul-Irénée Reboul de Pézenas (1763-1839); bought in Paris in 1822 from Reboul’s wife Éléonore by Samuel Woodburn (1783-1853); his sale [private contract], 25 March 1826, lot 7; Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), sale Christie’s 15 May 1830, lot 122, bt. Woodburn; first offered by Woodburn to Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, 7th Duke of Brandon (1767-1852) in 1832, and eventually sold to him for approximately £1000 in 1849-50; Hamilton Palace, Strathclyde; by descent to William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton (1845-1895), Hamilton sale, Christie’s, London, 24th June 1882 [second portion, fourth day], lot 402 (as Marcello Venusti), bt. Mainwaring 1360 gns (£1428); Christopher Beckett Denison (1825-1884), sale, 13 June 1885 [7th day], lot 911), bt. Agnew, from whom purchased, 1885 (Lewis Fund)

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987, supplemented by Carol Plazzotta, February 2025; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2009

From Raphael to Carracci: the Art of Papal Rome

National Gallery of Canada

29 May 2009 - 7 September 2009
2014

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting

The National Gallery (London)

30 April 2014 - 21 September 2014
2017

Menorah: Worship, History and Myth

Braccio di Carlo Magno

15 May 2017 - 23 July 2017
2024

Michelangelo: the last decades

The British Museum

2 May 2024 - 28 July 2024

Bibliography

1650

G. Manilli, Villa Borghese fuori di Porta Pinciana, Rome 1650
1787

F.W.B. von Ramdohr, Über Mahlerei und Bildhauerarbeit in Rom für Liebhaber des Schönen in der Kunst, Leipzig 1787
1836

J.D. Passavant, Tour of a German Artist in England, London 1836
1882

Christie, Manson & Woods, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures, Works of Art, and Decorative Objects, the Property of His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, K.T., London, 17 June 1882 - 20 July 1882
1962

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools (excluding the Venetian), London 1962
1964

P. Della Pergola, 'L'Inventario Borghese del 1693, II', Arte antica e moderna, XXVIII, 1964, pp. 451-67
1975

C. Gould, Delaroche and Gautier: Gautier's Views on the 'Execution of Lady Jane Grey' and on other Compositions by Delaroche, London 1975
1982

J. Brown et al., El Greco of Toledo (exh. cat. Museo Nacional del Prado, 1 April - 6 June 1982; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1 July - 6 September 1982; Toledo Museum of Art, 26 September - 21 November 1092; Dallas Museum of Art, 12 December 1982 - 6 February 1983), Boston 1982
1987

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
1994

A. Thomas, An Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting, London 1994
1995

P. Joannides, 'El Greco and Michelangelo', in El Greco of Crete: Proceedings of the International Symposium held on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the artist's birth, Crete, 1-5 September 1990, Municipality of Iraklion 1995, pp. 199-214
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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