19th Century Sculpture Seems to Be Holding a Smartphone

Today's peculiar image comes from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Take a second look. No, the woman depicted in the sculpture isn't holding a smartphone. If at first glance you thought she was, you wouldn't be alone. The sculpture, Erastus Dow Palmer's "The Indian Girl" (1856), actually depicts a Native American woman holding a crucifix. But in the last few years, visitors have had a quite different impression of the piece. In our smartphone-saturated world, it's hard to see a figure looking intently at an object in its hand without instantly assuming it's a phone. Looking at the past through the eyes of the present can have uncanny results!

Source: Motherboard. Image: The Met