Athaliah Expelled from the Temple

Athaliah Expelled from the Temple depicts the dramatic climax of the biblical story from 2 Kings 11, in which the priest Jehoiada orchestrates the restoration of the legitimate Davidic king Jehoash and the expulsion and execution of Athaliah, the usurping queen of Judah. The subject allowed painters to combine palace interior or temple architecture with crowd drama and a central female figure in extremis — all elements favoured by late Baroque history painting. Antoine Coypel painted this canvas in 1696, the year after Racine's celebrated tragedy Athalie made the story intensely topical in French cultural life. Coypel's version may well have been informed by Racine's theatrical staging as well as by the biblical text, giving the composition something of a theatrical quality in its organisation of figures around the central dramatic confrontation. The Louvre's canvas is among the most ambitious of Coypel's Old Testament subjects from his middle career.

The composition manages a large number of figures by organising them into a clear narrative foreground event — the confrontation and expulsion — with secondary groups receding into the temple interior. Coypel uses strong directional light to isolate Athaliah and give her dramatic prominence despite her physical vulnerability.