The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck

The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck

A couple in Bruges

A man and a woman stand hand in hand in a room of a house in Bruges, a red-curtained bed behind her. He is generally identified as Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, a merchant from Lucca who lived in the city; who she is remains less certain. He wears a broad black hat and a fur-trimmed tabard; she wears a green gown lined with fur over a blue dress, and the full skirt she gathers up is fashion, not pregnancy. Around them are the signs of a prosperous household: oranges by the window, a pair of wooden pattens left on the floor, a small dog, and a brass chandelier with one lit candle.

The mirror

On the back wall hangs a convex mirror, and in it the room is reflected in reverse, with two more figures standing in the doorway, roughly where the viewer would be. Its frame holds ten tiny roundels of scenes from the Passion of Christ, and beside it hangs a string of prayer beads. Above it Van Eyck has written, in elaborate script, “Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434”: Jan van Eyck was here, 1434. Every surface, from the dog’s coat to the brass, is painted in oil with the minute precision that made Van Eyck’s name.

Where it hangs

It has been in the National Gallery, London, since 1842, and measures 82.2 by 60 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 6,000-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 40 inches on its longest side.

Sources: National Gallery, London · Wikidata Q220859 · Wikimedia Commons