GIOVAN BATTISTA BEINASCHI | The expulsion from the temple

Anonymous sale, Rome, Christie's, 22 March 1988, lot 217.

M. Marini, 'Gregorio Preti. La sua Cerchia e gli amici', in Gregorio Preti, calabrese (1603-1672) un problema aperto, exh. cat., Milan 2004, p. 69, reproduced p. 70, fig. 9 (as Brandi);
M.A. Pavone, Dalla donazione Devanna. Dipinti dal Cinquecento al Novecento, exh. cat., Bari 2005, p. 60, cat. no. 12;
M.A. Pavone, Percorsi d'arte : tra vestigia dei Messapi il collezionismo dei Ruffo e l'evoluzione pittorica di Mino Delle Site, exh. cat., Salerno 2004, p. 122;
S. Marra, in Giovan Battista Beinaschi, Pittore barocco tra Roma e Napoli, V. Pacelli and F. Petrucci (eds.), Rome 2011, p. 321, cat. no. Cb23, reproduced in black and white (as whereabouts unknown).

This dramatic canvas was first recorded at the time of the 1988 Rome sale as by Beinaschi by Federico Zeri,¹ and was later given to Brandi by M. Marini before being re-attributed to the oeuvre of Beinaschi by M.A. Pavone.² Susanna Marra, in Vincenzo Pacelli and Francesco Petrucci's most recent catalogue raisonné of the artist's works, places this canvas in the artist's mature period, dating it to the late 1670s. Works from these last decades of Beinsachi's life are characterised by strong gesture and a theatricality typical of the baroque style. The gesture of Christ recalls that of Christ's in Cecco del Caravaggio's Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple of circa 1510, now in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,³ which was at the time located in the Giustiniani collection in Rome, and Beinsachi is likely to have known.³

1. Fondazione Federico Zeri inv.no. 104118
2. See Literature.
3. G. Papi, Gecco del Caravaggio, Soncino 2001, p. 115, cat. no. 4, reproduced p. 32, plate VI.