Christ driving out the money changers.

At a time when Florentine painting was moving away from Mannerism towards a more naturalistic style, Bernardino Poccetti (1548-1612) patiently worked his way up to become an eminent decorative fresco painter. The young Poccetti painted grotesques, then facades, and later expertly designed his frescoes to integrate painting, sculpture and architecture. Warm, vivid pastel colors characterise his frescoes, while his few paintings on canvas show strong contrasts of light and dark.
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Poccetti produced realistic, legible compositions with stylised figures, which were favored by private patrons. Church and corporate patrons, including the monks of Florence and Siena, found his dramatic and easily comprehensible narratives suitable to their aims of promoting piety and the Florentine saints.

This red chalk drawing, which shows the dominant figure of Christ driving the money-changers from the temple, reveals these qualities. It is certainly highly dramatic. Very likely it was intended as a preparatory drawing for one of Poccetti's frescoes.  Stylistically it has been compared by Peter Tomory to Poccetti's drawing of a bishop in the Uffizi, Florence, dated 1591-92. The inscribed verse, which is difficult to decipher accurately, appears to be autograph when compared with a drawing of <em>The Last Supper</em>, which has the names of the disciples listed in the artist's hand.

See: http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/794/bernardino-poccetti-barbatelli-italian-1548-1612/

Peter Tomory, <em>Old Master Drawings from the National Collection </em>(Wellington, 1983)

Dr Mark Stocker          Curator, Historical International Art         February 2017