AN ENGLISH CUBIST




WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple


Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.


Money Changers

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, 1925
(also dated 1922 in Reading 1983 catalogue; 'Painted in Fitzroy Street at about the same time as "Dogs of the Beni Hillal"' – Tate Gallery 1965 catalogue; dated 1924 in Roberts, Paintings 1917–1958, p. 32)
Oil on canvas, 48 cm x 52.5 cm

'And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves' (Matthew 21:12–13).
PROVENANCE: Desmond Coke > Sotheby's 23 July 1931 (£56) > 'Tritton' > Sotheby's 21 Nov. 1962 > 'Jackman' > Thomas Jones > Sotheby's 13 Mar. 1974 (£4,800) > private collection > Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
EXHIBITION HISTORY: New Chenil Galleries (1) 1926 ('To this sacred subject Mr. Roberts has applied methods which he has previously applied to football scrums. The money changers are like grotesque pugilists attired for the ring, and the figure of Christ, drawn in the same style, is an outrage on tradition, on probability and on all æsthetic sensibility' – Daily Mirror, 3 Nov. 1926; 'suffers a little from the effect that the colour is too gay to be relevant to the subject, but it is oddly "real"' – The Times, 3 Nov. 1926), Arthur Tooth & Sons 1935, Tate Gallery 1965, Parkin Gallery 1976, Commonwealth Institute 1977, Maclean Gallery 1980, Mayor Gallery 1982, Reading 1983, Newcastle 2004




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