'Time traveler' wearing Nike shoes 'spotted' in 400-year-old painting in National Gallery

Art enthusiasts were left baffled after a mother and daughter duo spotted what appears to be evidence of time travel in a 17th-century painting at the National Gallery.

The artwork, Portrait of a Boy by Dutch Master Ferdinand Bol, features an eight-year-old boy posing with a goblet on a table covered with a red cloth. The boy is dressed in attire typical of his era, including a black jacket and cape, a white shirt with frilly sleeves, reddish socks, and black boots.

However, upon closer inspection, the boots seem to feature a white Nike swoosh , despite being created centuries before the iconic brand's inception in 1964. Fiona Foskett, 57, noticed the anachronistic footwear during a visit to the London gallery with her daughter Holly, 23. The Isle of Wight resident told The Sun: "I said to my daughter, 'Hold on, is he wearing a pair of Nike trainers?."

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She joked: "Looking at the age, he must have got his hands on the first pair of Nike trainers ever made. Or is he actually a time traveler?"

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The boy in the painting is believed to be Frederick Sluysken, a relative of the artist's wife. A spokesperson for the National Gallery said: "We are delighted that this picture has been such a hit with our visitors."

They remarked: "It resonated with followers when we put out a Tweet asking people to see if they could spot a more 'modern' detail by taking a closer look at the shoes of the eight-year-old boy in the portrait."

However, not everyone on social media was convinced, reports the Daily Star . One user commented: "It's clearly the white sock showing under the bow/cravat and the shape is just the natural border of the shoe."

Another chimed in: "Called a buckle on the shoes as they where made from leather and used a strap to go through the buckle. Some people these days."

"It's not a Nike symbol ya blind bats, it's a buckle," another person posted.

This isn't the first time that an anachronistic object has been claimed to be seen in historical artwork. Art buffs spotted what looked like an iPhone in Umberto Romano's 1937 painting, Mr Pynchon And The Settling Of Springfield, which predates the Apple smartphone's debut by seven decades.

In the mural, there's a figure in the bottom right corner who seems to be holding something very contemporary against his ear, even holding it in such a way one might while using a smartphone app.

Theories about the identity of the phone-like object have varied, with some suggesting it could be anything from a knife to a mirror.

Romano departed this life in 1982, a time when mobile phones were not yet a common household item. Regrettably, we'll never discover what this early piece of technology was meant to symbolize.

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