Looking at "The Expected One," by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, you will immediately notice that the woman in the center of the painting is walking through a picturesque landscape towards a man waiting in the bushes holding a pink flower.
To modern viewers, however, the woman appears to be scrolling through her smartphone during her walk. Of course, that cannot be the case as the painting is from 1860 and the smartphone was not invented until the 1990s.
"What amazes me the most is how much a change in technology has changed the interpretation of the painting, and in a way the whole context of it."
Peter Russell
This is not the first time something like this has happened. Apple CEO Tim Cook remarked during a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam that a man in a 346-year-old Dutch painting appear to be holding an iPhone.
The painting in question was "Man Handing a Letter to Woman in the Entrance Hall of a House" by Pieter de Hooch. It was painted in 1670. The Rijksmuseum spokespeople, in response to Tim Cook, explained that "What looks like an iPhone is actually a common means of communication in the 17th century- a letter."
So, what is the explanation in this case for the smartphone in the Waldmüller painting?
The New York Post reported that, according to art critics, there is a simple explanation: it is a prayer book.
Peter Russell, a retired member of the local government of Glasgow, Scotland, was the first to notice the "phone" in the Waldmüller. Upon further research, he discovered its true nature. He remarked that the resemblance to an iPhone shows just how much society has changed:
"What amazes me the most is how much a change in technology has changed the interpretation of the painting, and in a way the whole context of it. The big change is that in 1850 or 1860, any viewer would have recognized the item the woman was engrossed in as a psalm or a prayer book. Today, no one could help but see the similarity to the scene of a teenage girl engrossed in a social network feed on her smartphone."