Tapestry "The Merchants are Banished from the Temple"

The tapestry with The expulsion of the merchants from the temple is part of the majestic series of the New Testament, manufactured by the Gobelins, and comes from the pontifical collections. Eight pieces of this series, woven between 1753 and 1764 in the ateliers of Michel Audran and by Pierre-François Cozette from cartoons by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet and Jean Restout, they were donated by Napoleon I to Pius VII Chiaramonti in 1805. Four of them remained at the Quirinale when the palace was handed over to the Savoy family.
This cloth, dated 1759, was made between 1757 and 1759 in the atelier of Michel Audran, whose signature we can read, from a cartoon by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet of 1713-1714. In the majestic scenery of the Temple of Jerusalem, Christ, cloaked in blue and wearing a pink robe, stands on the steps brandishing a whip in the air to drive away the merchants crowded in the atrium, who profane with their trade the Father's house" in the period prior to Easter. An excited composition by Jouvenet, inspired by the Gospel of St. John, with sellers of oxen, sheep and doves, money changers, whose stalls are overturned on the ground, which takes on dramatic and realistic tones in the gestures of the figures and the poses of the animals.