Sold Without Reserve | BERNARDINO DI BOSIO ZAGANELLI, CALLED BERNARDINO DA COTIGNOLA | MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS MARY MAGDALENE AND CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA BEFORE A LEDGE, A LANDSCAPE B...

Patrizi Collection, Rome;

Possibly with Galleria Bellini, Florence;

Austrian Embassy, Rome, before 1965 and probably until 1990;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 29 January 2005, lot 10;

There acquired.

A. Paolucci, I pittori da Cotignola Francesco e Bernardino Zaganelli, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florence 1964, vol. I, pp. 28-30, vol. II, pp. 16-17;

R. Roli, "Sul problema di Bernardino e Francesco Zaganelli," in Arte Antica e Moderna, XXXI, 1965, p. 232, reproduced pl. 80b;

F.R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Italian Schools: XV-XVI Century, London 1968, pp. 68-9, note 4.

A. Colombi Ferretti, "Zaganelli Bernardino e Francesco," in La pittura in Italia. Il Cinquecento, Milan 1987, p. 867;

A. De Marchi in G. Romano, ed., Da Biduino ad Algardi, Pittura e Scultura a confronto, exhibition catalogue, Turin 1990, p. 108, reproduced p. 107;

A. De Marchi in G. Romano, ed., Antichi Maestri Pittori. Quindici anni di studi e ricerche, exhibition catalogue, Turin 1993, pp. 145, 149;

R. Zama, Gli Zaganelli (Francesco e Bernardino) pittore: catalogo generale, Rimini 1994, p. 104, cat. no. 7, reproduced;

A. De Marchi, "Bernardino Zaganelli inedito: due 'Facies Christi'", in Prospettiva, nos. 75-76 (1994): p. 132;

A. Donati, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, San Marino 2007, p. 140;

A. Bliznukov in S. Chiodo and S. Padovani, The Alana Collection. Italian Paintings from the 14th to 16th Century, Florence 2014, vol. III, pp. 43-48, no. 7, reproduced p. 45.

Little is known about Bernardino Zaganelli’s life, but his works can be dated stylistically and in relation to the work of his brother Francesco, with whom he collaborated and shared a studio in their hometown of Cotignola. Both brothers primarily painted religious commissions, and the present work belongs to a group of small Madonna panels undoubtedly made for a private patron. This early independent painting by Bernardino is roughly contemporary with the first known collaboration between the Zaganelli brothers, which is signed and dated 1499.

The intimate scale and subject matter can be compared to a Madonna and Chid with St. Mary Magdalene and St. Christina formerly in the Kress Collection, New York, as well as a panel depicting the same subject as the present work in an Italian private collection. Roli, De Marchi, and Zama have all discussed these panels as a group (see Literature); Roli and Zama date them to just before 1499 along with the Deposition panel in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, while De Marchi dates them a few years later.