Bruno Croatto (Trieste 1875 - 1948) LADY WITH SHAWL oil on canvas, 65.5x57.5 cm signed lower left and dated 'Roma 1938'. FEMALE PORTRAIT WITH SHAWL oil on canvas, 65.5x57.5 cm signed lower left and dated 'Roma 1938' Provenance Cupo D'Alonzo Collection Bibliography F. Sborgi, Arte a Livorno tra le due guerre. Bottega d'Arte tra tradizione e avanguardie, Livorno 2007, p. 200 Against a clear sky, a sibylline promise of sunrise and sunset, the fascinating female profile stands out, bearing the solid memory of the teachings of Piero della Francesca, Raffello, Leonardo up to Ingres. The black shawl leaves her shoulders bare, her hands clasped on her chest like a modern Annunciation. The Trieste artist immortalises the portrayal through his unmistakable stylistic style, where technical expertise and minutiae of detail combine to give us an 'objective' reality, so objective that it is often almost frozen, alienating, dreamlike, magical. This is the poetics and charm of the German New Objectivity, of Magical Realism theorised by Massimo Bontempelli. It was after World War I that Croatto's painting naturally took this path, guided by the classical sobriety of the 15th-century masters and stimulated by his move to Rome in 1925. The house-studio in Via del Babuino became a meeting point for a refined upper middle-class public seduced by still lifes and timeless portraits, by the seduction of material rendering in suspended contemplation.