Friday’s ad is also for Rheingold Beer, this one from 1953, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Mary Austin. In this ad, she’s standing in front of an old-fashioned flower cart (I never see these anymore, has anyone else?). She’s also got on white gloves and is holding a black object for contrast, but what the hell is that? Is it an oddly-shaped pocketbook? A weird vase or pot for flowers? What?
For sure that’s not a photo – the “painter artist” f’d up bigtime:
1. Where’s the rest of her right arm? All we see are fingers inside the black circle, which seems to have no useful purpose relative to the rest of the scene.
2. The RH fingers are bigger than the LH inside the long glove.
3. She may have flower pot up against her waist, but her LH grip on it doesn’t look strong enough to hold it there.
Bottom line: not a bad ad for 1953, but a serious example of artistic license that very few people would have picked up on then. Same would hold true now. I’d bet that no more than 1% of the US populace would have a clue about its obvious reality flaws.