...Looking for one artwork to promote its new exhibition of Italian art in the 1930s in posters and on buses, the organisers at Palazzo Strozzi made an intriguing choice.... The curators chose a bold image, Woman at the Café, painted by Antonio Donghi in 1932. Perhaps the woman's wait (for a companion, for her order?) has been longer than she would like: her attention has wandered and she has folded one arm over the chair. With her back to the wall, she has little space in which to move: between the table, the chair and the framed objects to her right, the artist has pinned her in position for the viewer's scrutiny. Donghi, who had been associated with the style of ‘magic realism' and admired medieval Dutch art, heightened effects to an almost hypnotic level of visible clarity. Every part of the image is controlled and polished, from tabletop to the woman's complexion. Sensual qualities are restrained and angles are everywhere, colour subdued and the atmosphere airless. Time has stopped and normality seems suspended. The encounter is primarily intellectual and a little chilling... (http://www.theflorentine.net/art-culture/2012/10/while-il-duce-looked-away/)