This morning I attended an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Startup Fest Europe in Amsterdam. Tim Cook said lots of things, which we all already knew, but he also started off with an interesting anecdote, which is cute enough to share with you.
Tim was being accompanied by the former European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam the evening before. As Neelie Kroes told the story:
So. Much. Tech.
Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May.
âAt one point Tim rushes over and tells me âCome take a look, I found a painting with an iPhone on it!â So he takes my arm and shows me a Rembrandt with a person seemingly holding an iPhoneâŠâ
Tim Cook finished the story, saying âI always thought I knew when the iPhone was invented, but now Iâm not so sure anymore.â
Then Neelie showed the audience a photo she took with her iPhone, which was blurry, and even Tim Cook had to admit you couldnât really see it on the screen, which made the story less cool.
But I figured Iâd go home and find that painting real quick. I browsed to the Rijksmuseum site and entered âRembrandtâ and hit âSearch.â
After going through 2304 Rembrandts (spread over 192 pages), I can now confirm it wasnât a Rembrandt.
I ended up doing an image search for my photo of off a screen showing the photo:
And thatâs how I found it wasnât a Rembrandt at all. It was a Pieter de Hooch, painted in 1670, titled âMan Handing a Letter to a Woman in the Entrance Hall of a Houseâ.
Read that title again and now look at the painting:
As you can see there are several things wrong with that title. Iâm pretty sure guys werenât wearing skirts and high heels in that time, and that isnât a letter but an iPhone 6 gold.
My guess is sheâs shooting a video. Probably Snapchat. What do you think?
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