So what’s going on here? Has the female returned from a trip to Florida? Are the men crowding around motivated by an interest in Florida or in the woman? (She’s single: no wedding ring.) And what’s the point of the man at the door, to show that it’s snowing outside (as though we couldn’t figure that out by looking through the window)? And we need a date – the typewriter and the phone suggest the 1940’s but the men’s clothes look a little later (and is that a date on that desk on the left)? Was there a caption with this?
It is I believe the illustration to a magazine story from the 50s. There probably was a caption of some sort, or a title with a teaser line, but the questions it prompted you to ask are what it’s all about — questions that can only be answered by reading the story. Those old story illustrators were fiendishly clever.
So what’s going on here? Has the female returned from a trip to Florida? Are the men crowding around motivated by an interest in Florida or in the woman? (She’s single: no wedding ring.) And what’s the point of the man at the door, to show that it’s snowing outside (as though we couldn’t figure that out by looking through the window)? And we need a date – the typewriter and the phone suggest the 1940’s but the men’s clothes look a little later (and is that a date on that desk on the left)? Was there a caption with this?
It is I believe the illustration to a magazine story from the 50s. There probably was a caption of some sort, or a title with a teaser line, but the questions it prompted you to ask are what it’s all about — questions that can only be answered by reading the story. Those old story illustrators were fiendishly clever.