Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple

In 1751, the year he went to Rome to run the French Academy there, the painter Charles Natoire sold this enormous canvas to Louis XV. It is nearly three metres high and more than four wide, painted by Jordaens in Antwerp around 1645 to 1650. The Gospel of John says Christ made a whip of cords, drove the sheep and oxen out of the temple, overturned the money changers' tables and told the dove sellers to take their birds away. Jordaens packs all of it into one moment. Christ in a red cloak raises the whip, cattle push in behind him, a man goes over backwards with his table, and doves burst into the air. Market women, a baby, a donkey, a dog and a basket of chickens are caught in the crush, under columns carved with cherub heads.