The Arnolfini Portrait: The French Connection
The Arnolfini Portrait - Jan van Eyck
One of the reasons, apart from the usual displacement activities, it takes so long to write a book is because of the rabbit holes the writer tumbles down along the way, often because of accidentally stumbling over just one sentence read somewhere or other a long time ago.
Curiosity is exacerbated if the writer is, as in this case, a journalist trained to find out things (that can be fact checked or you won't get another writing job).
Academics call it ‘the unexpected areas of knowledge’
The source* is sometimes forgotten (or worse, untraceable) but the light bulb moment stays in the memory.
Researching for my next book the sentence referred to here became an ear worm. The gist of it was that the Dauphin Louis of France thanked Arnolfini for allowing him credit.
Louis XI, Gallery of Portraits, Chateau de Beauregard
Arnolfini!? That couldn’t be connected in any way with the Arnolfini in the famous double portrait*** by Van Eyck could it? Yes. It could. The very same chap.
How on earth did that come about? Who was Arnolfini? How did Louis know him? Why did he need to ask for credit?
When Louis was the Dauphin, he, like the Dauphin before him, his father Charles VII, lived in penniless exile. He was humiliated to be a guest of honour, a polite way of saying living on charity as the poor relation, at the astonishingly wealthy Court of the Duke of Burgundy.
This is where he met Arnolfini. And Jan van Eyck.
The Arnolfini family spent their adult lives at the Burgundian Court.
Arnolfini, a wealthy merchant capitalist, was in constant close contact with Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy. He regularly lent him money and provided him with luxury goods such as silks, tapestries, textiles, gold plate and jewels.
The Duke was such a huge fan of van Eyck, he appointed him Court Painter. His knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew made him even more attractive to the cultivated Philip. A generous Court salary freed van Eyck from commissioned work. The Duke paid him so well he was secure financially and could paint whenever he pleased.
Portraiture was no longer the preserve of royalty or the aristocracy. An emerging wealthy middle class led to a demand for portraits, hence the famous Arnolfini Portrait.
The duke of Burgundy was very good to Louis. Whether it was because he liked him, didn’t like Louis’ father or whether it was because he wanted an in with the next king of France who knows? Never the less, he wasn't called Philip the Good for nothing. He was certainly good to Louis. He gave him a château in Genappe in Belgium to live in with his wife and daughter.
Arnolfini visited the Dauphin there, lent him money and supplied him with rich fabrics for clothing so that he might put up some sort of presence at Court.
Louis stayed loyal to those loyal to him. When he succeeded his father as King, Arnolfini served him in important positions. He appointed him Governor of Finances for Normandy, knighted him and naturalized the Italian as a Frenchman.
Arnolfini closed his letters to Louis with the words ‘I have no other master than you’’
When Arnolfini died, Louis awarded his widow with a generous pension in the form of revenues from ships docking in Richebourg Harbour near Paris.
As for the famous painting by van Eyck, wheels within wheels.
Margaret of Austria, Jean Hey
The first known mention of it was when it was listed in an inventory of the art collection of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands who features prominently in my book.
Margaret was concerned for the safekeeping of the Arnolfini Portrait. A marginal note in the inventory says that that a lock was to be placed on its folding doors ‘as Madame had ordered’
The famous portrait was painted in 1434 almost six hundred years ago.
There must be that number of theories regarding explanations for every single millimetre of the painting. They are outside the scope of this blog as is indeed the story of how a letter from the French Dauphin ended up in Russia. Two more rabbit holes to tumble into.
* Letter from Louis XI dated 1460 to Arnolfini. St. Petersburg Archives. The Institute of History.
** to be published soon
***His name is famous not because he lent money to the French Dauphin but because he is the subject of The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art).
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