The Arnolfini Portrait: the symbolism of the mirror, the dog and the hidden signs

The Arnolfini Portrait, also known as the Arnolfini Wedding, is a double portrait by Jan van Eyck of 1434 in the National Gallery in London. It shows a couple in a room in Bruges, and the symbolism is rich: almost every object has been interpreted as a sign, the dog as fidelity, the single burning candle as the presence of God and the slippers as holy ground. The convex mirror shows two people in the doorway, and above it van Eyck has written that he was here.

Facts

A couple in a room

The man in a large black hat and a fur-trimmed cloak raises his right hand, as if to swear or greet. The woman in a green dress places her hand in his. The room is a rich burgher's home in Bruges: a bed with red hangings, an oriental carpet, a brass chandelier, a window with oranges on the sill. Everything is painted with a sharpness that lets you count the beads of the rosary on the wall.

Jan van Eyck was court painter to the Duke of Burgundy and the most skilful oil painter of his time. He did not invent oil painting, as was long believed, but he refined it. By laying thin, transparent layers, glazes, one on top of another, he could render light on metal, glass and fabric as no one had before. Read more in the guide to fresco, tempera and oil.

The mirror and the signature

In the middle of the back wall hangs a convex mirror. In its frame are ten small medallions with scenes from the Passion of Christ. In the mirror we see the room from behind, the couple seen from the back and two people in the doorway, where the viewer stands. One of them may be van Eyck himself.

Above the mirror, in flourishing letters, is written Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434, Jan van Eyck was here. It is unusually worded. An artist otherwise writes that he made the picture, not that he was there. The text has therefore been interpreted to mean that the painter was a witness to something that took place in the room. The mirror became a model for later artists; the Spanish royal family owned the painting when Velázquez painted Las Meninas with its own mirror. See the guide Las Meninas explained.

The objects and what they may mean

In the chandelier a single candle burns in the middle of the day. It has been interpreted as the presence of God, or as a candle at a vow. The dog in the foreground, a small griffon, is usually read as fidelity, but it is also an expensive dog that shows the couple's prosperity. The slippers standing on the floor, one pair by the man's feet and one by the bed, have been interpreted to mean that the room is holy ground, after Moses, who took off his shoes at the burning bush.

The oranges on the windowsill were an expensive import from the south and may stand for wealth, but also for the fruit of paradise and innocence. On the bedpost sits a small carved figure usually identified as Saint Margaret, patron saint of women in childbirth, and the rosary and brush on the wall may stand for piety and the virtues of the home. None of the interpretations is certain. Read more about how to read such signs in the guide to iconography and attributes.

A wedding, or not?

The art historian Erwin Panofsky argued in 1934 that the painting is a kind of marriage certificate, with van Eyck as the witness. The interpretation became very well known and gave the picture the name the Arnolfini Wedding. Later research has questioned it. The man was long thought to be Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini, but archive finds show that he married only in 1447, six years after van Eyck's death. Today it is most often thought to be his cousin Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini.

If it is he, the woman may be his first wife, Costanza Trenta, who seems to have died before 1434. The picture could then be a memorial portrait. Others argue that it shows a betrothal or simply a well-off couple. A common misconception is that the woman is pregnant. She holds up her full dress in the fashionable way, and most scholars believe she is not.

The details that show van Eyck's skill

Go close and look at the chandelier. Each brass arm has its own reflections, and the light from the window gleams on the rounded form. In the mirror the room is curved as in a real convex mirror, with the window, the ceiling and the bed distorted in the right direction. The dog's fur is painted hair by hair, and the wood of the slippers and the planks of the floor have grain and wear.

Examinations with infrared technology have shown that van Eyck changed several details during the work, among others in the man's hand and face. The picture is thus not a copy of something he drew up once and for all, but the result of work in which he looked and adjusted. This is part of the explanation of why the room feels so real, almost as if one could step into it.

The picture's journey and seeing it yourself

The painting ended up early with the Habsburgs and came to the Spanish royal collection. After the Battle of Vitoria in 1813 it was taken to Britain by a British officer, and the National Gallery bought it in 1842. It is only 82 centimetres high, and many are surprised at how small it is.

In the diagram below you can point to the chandelier, the signature, the mirror, the oranges, the dog and the slippers and see what they mean. The picture is also the first example in Looking at art. Read about the period in the Early Netherlandish painters and the Gothic, and compare with The Ambassadors in the same museum, a portrait full of objects painted a hundred years later; see the guide Holbein's The Ambassadors.

What to look for

Exercise

What is written above the mirror in the Arnolfini Portrait?