The person who sold this image on ebay said the woman was sitting in a hotel room. There is nothing written on the back to indicate this is true. What do you think indicates it's most likely a hotel room and not just this woman's bedroom?
I think it's a lovely room with the soft light. And if it's a hotel room is she reading a Gideon Bible? I travelled a lot as a kid with many motels coast to coast and a few old hotels. It never failed that I'd find a Gideon Bible in the drawer. Of course I checked for free postcards and stationary first because they were never a given. But the Bible in the nightstand was always there. It actually made me laugh when I was a kid because I wondered who this person Gideon was who kept hiding books in the drawers.
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This is image is from my book Tattered and Lost: The Quiet Art of Reading and is my contribution to the theme this week at Sepia Saturday.
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The two single beds perhaps, or the fact that it is so neat and tidy?
ReplyDeleteWith the twin beds it almost looks like a movie set when couples could not sleep in a bed together on screen. The man always had to have one foot on the floor.
DeleteI think the telephone makes it appear to be a hotel room rather than the woman's bedroom since telephones used to be in the main part of the house and rarely did anyone have a second phone. Hotel stationery - I had forgotten that.
ReplyDeleteYou're right with that observation. To have a phone in multiple rooms was most likely far too expensive for most people.
DeleteIt looks more like a bedroom at home to me, but then not a very comfortable reading position. Obviously the light from the window helps if your eyesight is going, but why sit at a table or desk, better suited to writing? An interesting photograph.
ReplyDeleteFor quite awhile I too thought it a bedroom that was super tidy, but then I noticed that there is nothing on the top of the bureau. Nada. No jewel box, no perfume, not hairbrush. That seemed odd for a bedroom so I now figure it might just be a hotel room.
DeleteI noticed the lack of things also, the tidy quality is too impersonal for a true bedroom. The pictures look oddly placed too. More like a room in a remodeled European hotel where they created many small rooms in the space of the old one. But the photo is still interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is impersonal, but then I've been in some homes where nothing personal is sitting around. Those are also usually the homes that have no bookcases. Never trust a house without books.
DeleteThe quirks in the decor does make you wonder. Phones in Europe (Paris comes to mind) were (and still are) hard to come by - it can take years to get a line installed. That said, it does look like a hotel room (or a B and B). Interesting photo in any event - it makes you think about what you are looking at.
ReplyDeleteOther than at something like a Holiday Inn, the only time I remember a phone in a room in Europe was in Stratford. I used to ask when the band would stop playing! And when in London it was during a phone strike so the big talk each breakfast was "Do you know where there are any working phones?" The hunt was on each day. One day one would work, the next it wouldn't. I remember traveling across town to a phonebox outside the V & A.
DeleteAt first thought it seemed like a home bedroom but on closer inspection there are no personal items at all. Perhaps it was a marketing image for a rather upmarket hotel as the furniture does seem to be good quality.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting thought that it might have been shot for trade purposes.
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