A piece of art was spotted from the mid-19th century that shows a young woman holding a phone. Now we’re used to seeing such images of people nowadays but picturing it hundreds of years ago when the idea of electricity or even a computer which could be held in your hands was absurd.
The piece of art known as, “’The Expected One’, was painted by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller way back in 1860. Currently being displayed in Neue Pinakothek Museum in Munich, Germany, alongside other paintings from the era.
The person who came across this painting was Peter Russell, a retired local in Glasgow Government officer, who was pursuing the walls of the gallery with his partner. It depicts a pleasant scene of a girl looking intently at something in her hand while a young man looks on, waiting to present her with a flower.
“Taking selfies even back then, smh,” joked one person.
Another said: “No, that’s a Nokia 3310.”
Russell said it was an interesting example of how life had evolved in the past couple of centuries while speaking to Vice,
“What strikes me most is how much a change in technology has changed the interpretation of the painting, and in a way has leveraged its entire context,” he said.
“The big change is that in 1850 or 1860, every single viewer would have identified the item that the girl is absorbed in as a hymnal or prayer book.”
“Today, no one could fail to see the resemblance to the scene of a teenage girl absorbed in social media on their smartphone.”
Allegations of time travel were also denied by Gerald Weinpolter, the CEO of Austrian paintings at an art agency.
He told Vice: “The girl in this Waldmüller painting is not playing with her new iPhone X, but is off to church holding a little prayer book in her hands.”
Taking to social media, one person backed the explanation.
They said: “It’s a breviary – a small prayerbook with rosary beads hanging from them.”
“Amazing how we’ve lost touch with our traditions that we can’t even tell what an average person was doing before cell phones.”
