Is the Arnolfini Portrait really a marriage contract?

Panofsky said yes, and many specialists today say no, which makes the painting a masterclass in how art historians argue. In 1934 Erwin Panofsky argued that the elaborate signature on the back wall, "Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434" ("Jan van Eyck was here 1434"), and other factors show that the Arnolfini Portrait was painted as a legal record of the couple's marriage, complete with witnesses. Panofsky also argued that the many domestic details each carried a disguised symbolism.

The marriage-certificate claim is not accepted by all art historians; his reading of the symbolic details, though, is broadly agreed. Others offered alternatives. Edwin Hall thinks the painting shows a betrothal. Margaret Carroll argues the couple are already married and that the picture formalises a mandate, by which the husband hands his wife legal authority to conduct business, similar to a power of attorney. Lorne Campbell, in the National Gallery catalogue, sees little reason to believe the portrait has any significant narrative content. Margaret Koster suggests a memorial: a lit candle on Giovanni's side, a burnt-out one on his wife's.

Even the identity is uncertain. The subject is believed to be either Giovanni di Arrigo or his cousin Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, and a wife of either one of them. The lesson is a method as much as an answer: every detail may be a symbol, a convention or a flourish, and the evidence has to decide.