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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Charlotte Hawes

'Time traveller' spotted looking at 'mobile phone' in eerie painting from 1860

A famous painting from 1860 seems to prove that time travel is real as the woman in the image appears to be holding a mobile phone which was not invented until many years later.

The painting in question, titled 'The Unexpected One' by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, shows a woman walking down a rocky path with a young man on the right holding a rose.

However, it seems that the woman is too occupied to notice that the rosy-cheeked man is on bended knee, waiting to give her the flower as a declaration of his love.

In the painting, the woman is focused on a rectangular object which is placed in both of her hands.

Some claim that the object looks like a mobile phone, a device that was not invented until decades later.

The woman is seen in the image holding a rectangular object (Wiki Commons)

While this item may look similar to an iPhone, which wasn't invented until 2007, art critics have stated that there is a simple explanation to the illusion.

The woman is thought to be reading a prayer book during her stroll rather than browsing on an iPhone as if she were a time traveller.

Gerald Weinpolter, CEO of the art agency austrian-paintings.at, explained to 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."

Peter Russell, a retired local Glasgow government officer, was one of the first people to take a shine to the painting, pointing out how the object could be misconstrued for something more modern than a prayer book.

He first saw the painting while visiting the Neue Pinakothek museum in Munich.

Peter told 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.

The 1670 painting is the work of Pieter de Hooch (Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“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.”

However, this is not the first time that a 'time traveller' has been spotted with what seems to be a mobile phone in their hands before the device was invented.

In another mind-boggling image, a 1670 painting by Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch shows a quaint domestic scene, with one of the subject's holding what looks like an iPhone.

The supposed image of an iPhone - painted centuries before the devices were first created - can be seen in the hands of a man standing to the right of the picture, according to conspiracy theorists.

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