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This painting shows the features characteristic of El Greco’s late period. These include the ecstatic movements of the figures and the dramatic light effects. Here El Greco does not emphasise the three-dimensionality of the figures and the setting. Instead he is principally concerned with the picture’s spiritual content. In paintings from this period he employed a decidedly expressionistic idiom.

The painting shows a scene from the New Testament, Jesus expelling the money-changers from the temple. This motif was very popular during the Counterreformation, for the purification of the temple was interpreted as a symbol of the struggle against heresy and for the reform of the church.