Arnolfini marriage

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Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife

Jan van Eyck, 1434

oil on oak

82.2 × 60 cm

National Gallery, London

64 worlds greatest paintings

The Arnolfini marriage (full title: Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife) is a 1434 painting by Jan van Eyck.

This painting is a portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami in a Flemish bedchamber. It is one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art history. Currently part of the collection of the National Gallery in London (which acquired it in 1842), van Eyck executed the work with oil on oak panel in 1434.

There is considerable debate regarding whether or not the portrait is intended as a record of the marriage of the two primary figures. For instance, "Jan van Eyck's 'Arnolfini' Portrait", an article by Erwin Panofsky published in 1934 in the Burlington Magazine, argued that it was painted as a legal document witnessing a marriage. Art historian Edwin Hall has challenged Panofsky's idea that this painting is a marriage and instead feels that it is a betrothal. Art historian Margaret D. Carroll rejects both ideas in her 1993 article "In the Name of God and Profit: Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait", where she argues that the painting is a buisness contract between the husband and wife.

The convex mirror at the back of the room reflects two figures in the doorway. One may be the painter himself. Some scholars believe that the mirror was painted like this to reflect the presence of two other people in the room, proving that the requisite number of witnesses were present to make the wedding legal. The mirror itself is a device that, according to a theory set forth by David Hockney, allowed the forms to be projected onto the surface of the painting, leaving the painter to simply match and fill in the colors. That technique migrated gradually to Italy and most of Europe and may be the reason for the photographic style of painting we see in the northern Renaissance and other periods of art. This theory is widely disputed by artists and historians alike.