The Arnolfini Wedding

Key Pieces series

With our ‘Key Piece’ this week we travel back to the 15th century with Jan van Eyck internationally renown The Arnolfini Wedding and the numerous mysteries that envelop the painting.

1. It was painted in 1434 by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck and his atelier.
2. It is one of the most complex painting of the Western Art because of its mysterious iconography.
3. The oil on oak panel supposedly depicts the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their home in Bruges.
4. The painting is surprisingly small – 82,2 x 60 cm – compared to its many representations on posters and pictures.
5. The Arnolfini Wedding passed through several owners, among whom the sitters themselves, then Marguerite from Austria and Marie from Hungary, it was then offered to George IV in 1816 and in 1842 the London National Gallery bought it for 630 pounds. The painting can still be admired in the National Gallery today.
6. The mirror in the very center of the painting in the back of the room reflects the back of the Arnolfini and two figures in the doorway. One of them is Jan Van Eyck.
7. The deep perspective and self portrait incorporated in the painting by Van Eyck inspired Diego Velasquez’s Las Meninas.
8. The painting is the subject of many different interpretations among scholars. So far no real proof of the fact that it really is a portrait of the Arnolifini has been found.
9. It is an allegory of matrimony that might not represent existing characters as points out Art Historian Helen Gardner: ‘Almost every object depicted is in some way symbolic of the holiness of matrimony.’
10. The Arnolifni Wedding has been honored many times in popular culture, it is notably available in Lego figurines.