Philadelphia Sunday Press: November 10th 1895

This is a cover of the Philadelphia Sunday Press, likely from around 1895, created as chromolithograph. A central motif is the woman on horseback, a symbol resonating through centuries. Consider the equestrian statues of Roman emperors, symbols of power and command. Here, the woman similarly embodies authority. This is a powerful image, stirring the depths of our collective memory, echoing through time and evolving with societal shifts. But look, beside her we see a man with a bicycle. The wheel, an ancient symbol of the sun and cyclical time, takes on new form here. No longer a chariot wheel, but a modern conveyance. Does this symbol connect the ancient and the modern, reminding us that progress is a spiral, revisiting old forms in new contexts? Like the ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, the wheel embodies our cyclical existence, each turn bringing echoes of the past into the present.