It can be hard to remember a time before smartphones – and in particular the model that started it all. Apple's iPhone, which has probably replaced your computer, music player, calculator and approximately a billion other devices, first launched in 2007. Or is that 1860?
A nineteenth century painting has resurfaced featuring what very much appears to be a woman holding an iPhone. And while that obviously isn't what we're looking at, it's fun to imagine, right? (Check out the best iPhone 14 deals if you want to look as contemporary as her.)
“The Expected One" by Austrian painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller is doing the rounds right now, with social media users going wild for the hilarious illusion. The lady in 162 year-old painting is displaying all the hallmarks of a modern day smartphone user: both hands clutching the device, presumably messaging a suitor, eyes down, oblivious to the beautiful landscape around her – and to the slightly creepy guy brandishing a flower in the foreground. There even appears to be a faint glow emanating from the 'screen' – this must be an OLED model.
But of course, she isn't holding a prehistoric iPhone. According to Vice, the painting was spotted at Munich's Neue Pinakothek museum earlier this year. "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.
This is a painting from 1860. Some dude is about to snatch her iPhone. pic.twitter.com/F8S9MOIBGFOctober 5, 2022
So what's she holding? A prayer book, of course. “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,” Gerald Weinpolter, CEO of the art agency austrian-paintings.at, told Vice.
Still, it's not the first time we've seen iPhones pop up in unusual places. Last year, the internet went wild when a supposedly unreleased model appeared in an Apple TV series – but just like the lady looking at Tinder her prayer book, all was not quite as it seemed there either.
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