Castello Sforzesco, Milan acquires rediscovered masterpiece by Bernardo Zenale

1 October 2024

The Castello Sforzesco, Milan has acquired Saint John the Baptist, Standing Full Length in a Landscape (c. 1508–1510) by Bernardo Zenale.

The Castello Sforzesco, Milan, has acquired Saint John the Baptist, Standing Full Length in a Landscape by Bernardo Zenale, of about 1508 to 1510. The saint fills almost the whole panel, set against a wild landscape of winding river and distant mountains.

The painting belonged in the early twentieth century to Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth (1842 to 1923), Member of Parliament between 1886 and 1900 and a collector with an interest in antiquities and history. Believing it to be by Lazzaro Bastiani, he gave it in 1905 to Downside Abbey, the Benedictine community in Somerset, where it remained until it was sold at Sotheby's in 2020.

It was that sale that returned the panel to scholarly attention. Professor Stefania Buganza established the attribution to Zenale and the date, arguing from the Leonardesque character of the composition, the soft modelling of the saint's face and the detail of the landscape.