JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I have made perhaps 100 posts on the images from a collection of WWI news photo service images that I have, and for quite some time this image  (below) has been one of he most captivating of the thousand or so that were in that collection.  Generally the images were accompanied by a suggested text that could appear alongside the picture when it was published (see here for the ins and outs of publishing photographs during WWI), but this one had no description at all, save for the copyright on the back belonging to Underwood and Underwood. 

I thought that this photo was from 1918, as 1000 of its companions were, but I was corrected by on twitter about the Mona Lisa’s true name–Jennie Fletcher, (1890-1968), and the picture was at the 1912 Olympics.  It is nice to be able to put a name to the face.  (See the BBC for a good story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7554196.stm)

The camera has caught her at an awkward time, especially given the sensitivities of showing skin in bathing attire. 

What is she conveying? What is she saying with the attitude of her head and the look in her eyes?

There have been Classic Attitudes among the photographs (like the Venus of the Tars, for example), and in all of these examples, she is the only Mona Lisa.