Arnolfini Portrait: Wedding or Funeral?

When delving into the details of the painting “The Arnolfini Portrait,” long thought to depict a wedding, we actually encounter a tragedy. The painting, belonging to the Belgian artist Jan van Eyck, features the artist’s friends Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and Costanza Trenta, who tragically passed away giving birth a year before the painting’s date in 1433. This detail about Costanza adds a tragic context to the painting. Let’s explore the details further to trace the traces of this tragedy.

The position of the couple holding hands: Arnolfini holding the open hand of his bride is interpreted as a gesture of him holding onto her while life slips away from her.

When we take a closer look at the hands of the couple, what catches our eye is the ‘gargoyle,’ a symbol representing death.

Let’s lift our gaze to the chandelier, we observe that Arnolfini’s candle is still burning, but Costanza’s candle has melted.

Now, let’s focus on the dog looking at us from the edge of the bride’s dress: If we consider the ancient Roman tradition where dogs accompanied women to the afterlife in their graves, this adds significance to Costanza’s tragedy.

Finally, two details in the painting suggest that the painter might have witnessed this death: One is the reflection of the artist himself surrounded by ten different depictions of “The Crucifixion of Christ” in the mirror in the painting.

The other detail is the Latin signature of the painter, which translates to: “Jan van Eyck was here.”