

Artist: Jan Van Eyck
Year: 1434
Type: Oil on oak panel of 3 vertical boards
Dimensions: 84cm x 60cm
Location: National Gallery. London
The Arnolfini Portrait is a picture full of cruxes as well as of beauty. In the marriage appears one of the members of the merchants' powerful family luqueses, the Arnolfini. The Arnolfini of this epoch that they could have married were two brothers: Giovanni and Michele. It is believed that the husband in this case is Giovanni, the gesture of the husband on having taken the hand of his wife implies social superiority before a woman, some investigators believe that it is Michele, that he married such a Elizabeth of unknown family, for what his gesture would be of protecting her and to introduce her in a social level superior to that of her cradle.
The inscription of Van Eyck in the wall of the bottom, in the most beautiful interlaced Gothic script. The inscription Eyck doesn't say that Van Eyck was painting the picture, but " Jan van Eyck was here ".
The mirror of the wall, which reflects two assistants at sight, one of which he looks like a painter (the one that is dressed in blue). The meticulousness of Van Eyck allows identifying not only the reflected figures, but also the adornments of the mirror: they are ten scenes with the Passion and death of Jesus Christ. Other symbolic elements that in the picture appear in the stay as simple dispersed objects for the room: the dog to the feet of the spouses indicates conjugal loyalty, the lamp with an alone flushed candle symbolizes the marriage, as also the sculpture of Holy Daisy in the handle of the bed, the hung bunch of the same bed symbolizes the fertility, and this way a large etc.
With regard to the wife, we will indicate the curious feminine mode that the ladies were taking: the forehead was cut and was making up with one; she touches in the shape of horns. The fashionable garment was provoking a deformation in the anatomy of the woman who made think that the handcuffed one was pregnant.
Bibliography:
http://foro.elaleph.com/viewtopic.php?t=10127
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-van-eyck-the-arnolfini-portrait