Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



Click to view high resolution image

  • Title: Arnolfini Portrait
  • Creator: Jan van Eyck, painter
  • Description: This portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami is not a visual document of their wedding. Giovanna is not pregnant, as is often thought, but looks so because she holds up her long skirt. Nevertheless, elements in the image may portend a successful pregnancy for the future: the bedstead displays a carved figure of St. Margaret (patron saint of pregnant women) rising from the dragon. Both the candle in the chandelier and the dog between the couple might be understood as symbols of passion and fertility: newlyweds often lit a single candle next to the bed to promote fertility. Dogs were used in sermons as examples of lust, yet the prayer beads hanging on the back wall indicate that the Arnolfinis are faithful Christians. The mirror on the back wall contains a series of medallions displaying scenes from Christ’s Passion. The events begin with the bottom-center medallion, which shows the Agony in the Garden, and moves clockwise, ending with the Harrowing of Hell. Two figures are reflected in the mirror, one perhaps van Eyck himself, and Giovanni’s raised hand might be a greeting to these figures as they enter the room.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Dogs Domestic Space Fertility Headresses Husbands Iconography Portraits Wives
  • Geographic Area: Low Countries
  • Century: 15
  • Date: 1434
  • Related Work:
  • Current Location: London, National Gallery, NG186
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Paintings
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Wood; Oil
  • Donor: Layman; Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, merchant
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 60 cm/82.2 cm/
  • Inscription: Above mirror: Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434 [“Jan van Eyck was here in 1434.”]
  • Related Resources: Craig Harbison, Jan van Eyck: The Play of Realism (London: Reaktion Books: Distributed in USA and Canada by the University of Washington Press, 1991), 34-35.