Bernardino di Bosio Zaganelli, called Bernardino da Cotignola

Private collection, Germany;

Acquired by the present owner by 2012.

V. Damian, Un modello inédit de Tanzio da Varallo. Acquisitions récents, Paris 2003, pp. 16-17, reproduced;

A. Donati, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, Dogana 2007, p. 138, under cat. no. 9, reproduced p. 44, fig. 8.

Intimate in scale and intended for private devotion, this rare tavoletta by Bernardino Zaganelli depicts Christ flanked by the penitent Saint Jerome and a kneeling Augustinian saint who wears a black habit. The silhouette of a distant city is visible on the horizon beneath a mountainous landscape recalling the steep crags of San Leo and San Marino in the artist’s homeland. Bernardino Zaganelli likely trained in Forli and ran a workshop in Cotignola near Ravenna with his brother and frequent collaborator, Francesco. Indeed, the figure of Saint Jerome is nearly identical to the saint in Francesco's signed monumental altarpiece of the Conception of the Virgin (Forli, Pinacoteca Civica), dated 1513.