Bernardino MeiItalian, 1612–1676Christ Cleansing the Temple
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Christ Cleansing the Temple” now? Collection: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Not on view at present. Checked October 7, 2026.
Los Angeles, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
The New Testament relates an occasion when, upon visiting the Temple of Jerusalem during Passover, Jesus found it filled with livestock and turned into a marketplace by merchants and money changers. Furious that the sacred place had been turned into a “den of thieves”, Christ fashioned a whip out of cords, and drove them from the temple, overturning tables as he went. In this animated composition, the diagonal thrust of Christ’s movement through the crowd, and the monumental figures reeling in his wake, Bernardino Mei convincingly conveys Christ's righteous anger. This was a popular subject amongst other contemporary seventeenth-century painters, because it offered an opportunity to illustrate a scene laden with tumultuous action and intense emotion. Following the Counter Reformation, it was also seen as symbolic of the recent overhaul of the Catholic Church.
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Features such as the half-length figures, their unidealized faces, and their positioning in the extreme foreground are borrowed from the Caravaggesque tradition. Mei deviates from this tradition, however, by bathing his composition in unifying, silvery light, which harmonizes the colors, and makes the painting distinctly different in character to works by Caravaggio and his followers, whose use of strong, directional light creates stark contrast between highlights and shadows.
J. Paul Getty Museum
Details
- Accession number
- 69.PA.27
In the catalog
Sources
- J. Paul Getty Museum
- Image: J. Paul Getty Museum — Open Content
