Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by El Greco

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple by El Greco

A subject he never let go

El Greco returned to this story more often than to almost any other: there are versions from his early Venetian years to the end of his life. Christ stands at the centre in a red tunic, raising a whip, and the traders around him recoil — to the left, sellers and a half-naked man shielding himself; to the right, a group of calm figures who seem to discuss what they are seeing. The composition barely changed in forty years; the manner around it did.

Why this story

In the Counter-Reformation the scene had a clear meaning: the Church purifying itself of corruption. The theme suited a Catholic city like Toledo, and it suited El Greco, whose pictures turn on the contrast between agitation and a still, central figure.

A small version

This canvas at the Frick is one of the smaller versions, and among the most finished — painted with a sure, quick hand, compact enough to be held close.

Where it hangs

The canvas is in the Frick Collection in New York and measures 42 by 52 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 6,198-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 41 inches on its longest side.

Sources: The Frick Collection, New York · Wikidata Q5108849 · Wikimedia Commons