The original image of "My Wife and My Mother in Law" was used as a postcard in Germany. The postcard began to circulate in 1888 before William Ely Hill's recreation was published in an American humor magazine where the image became popularized. The original piece of art was intriguing enough to warrant attention from a cartoonist who used his perspective on the image to create a subjectively humorous cartoon that made the distinction and ability to have a "gestalt switch" more possible.