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LUCA GIORDANO (Naples 1634 - 1705) FIGURE STUDIES FOR 'CHRIST DRIVING THE MONEYCHANGERS FROM THE TEMPLE' (ca. 1660)
Red chalk and black chalk on pink prepared paper. Numbered in pen '26' at the top left corner. On the verso, in the same technique, a sketch of the Virgin and Child with souls in Purgatory. Watermark: Pascal Lamb in double circle; 330 x 455 mm.
The figures on the recto are connected with the painting 'Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple' formerly in the collection of the Duke of Orléans, which is now lost but known through an engraving. See Oreste Ferrari and Giuseppe Scavizzi, 'Luca Giordano. L'opera completa', Naples, 1992, p. 401, fig. 1084. Another drawing, in the same style of our, connected with the full composition has been published by Giuseppe Scavizzi. See G. Scavizzi, 'New Drawings by Luca Giordano', in 'Master Drawings', vol. XXXVII, number 2, summer 1999, p. 133, no. 16, fig. 5.
The sketch on the verso is a 'primo pensiero' for the painting 'St. Cajetan interceding with the Virgin for the souls in Purgatory' (1662). See Ferrari and Scavizzi, op. cit., cat. no. A156, fig. 233. My thanks to Pietro Ulisse Jona, who found this connection.

A Neapolitan pupil of Jusepe Ribera, Giordano enjoyed a long and successful career. After traveling to Rome and the Veneto, Giordano began to move away from Ribera's tenebrist style towards a lighter, more decorative manner. He was soon established as the leading painter in the city, executing altarpieces for many Neapolitan churches and working at such rapid pace that he was nicknamed 'Luca fa presto'. He also developed a reputation beyond Naples. His foreign patrons included the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III and the Spanish King Charles II, who invited the artist to Spain in 1692. Appointed court painter, Giordano remained in Spain for ten years, working at the Escorial and for courtly and noble patrons in Madrid and Toledo. He eventually returned to Naples in 1702 and continued to work with considerable energy until his death.