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Kelly-Ann Mills & Lucy Farrell

Art fans baffled as woman in 150 year-old painting 'appears to be using iPhone'

A 150-year old painting has left art lovers speculating, as its subject appears to be scrolling on an iPhone.

The image of the young woman walking through country path with the supposed device features in The Expected One - painted by Ferdinand George Waldmüller in the 1860s.

The oil painting depicts a man crouching in the shade with a flower as the lady walks in his direction, totally engrossed in what she's holding.

While this sounds like typical scene from the time, viewers with modern eyes have joked that the image is the work of time-travel, with the artist learning of the electronic in the future.

Unfortunately, those hopeful of this theory will be disappointed to hear that experts have offered a more realistic explanation, reports the Mirror. The painting first went viral online back in 2017 while hanging at the Neue Pinakothek Museum in Munich, Germany.

Onlookers joked that she was probably swiping through Tinder (Wikimedia Commons)

At the time, people remarked that the woman was ignoring the man because she was probably swiping on Tinder. But the image actually shows the woman focusing deeply on her hymn book, her devotion to God far greater than the mortal man and his Earthly desires.

This slightly disappointing titbit of information comes from the gallery itself, and will no doubt be a shock to people convinced the painting is evidence of time travel.

Speaking to Motherboard, the man who first spotted that it looks like she’s flicking through Insta, Peter Russell, said: "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 added: "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."

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