Which Flemish painter created 'The Arnolfini Portrait'?

Jan van Eyck created The Arnolfini Portrait, an oil painting on an oak panel dated 1434. Van Eyck was a Flemish painter associated with the Early Netherlandish tradition, and the work is now held by the National Gallery in London. It shows a richly dressed couple in an interior filled with carefully observed objects and symbolic details.

The painting is famous for its extraordinary surface detail, including the chandelier, clothing, fruit, small dog, and convex mirror on the rear wall. The mirror reflects two figures standing in the doorway, while the inscription above it reads, in Latin, “Jan van Eyck was here, 1434.” Scholars have debated the identities of the couple and the meaning of the scene for generations.

The title is also less certain than it sounds. The sitters are generally connected with the Italian merchant family Arnolfini, but their exact identities and the purpose of the portrait remain debated. The work is sometimes called The Arnolfini Wedding, although the theory that it records a marriage is not universally accepted. Albrecht Dürer, Hans Memling, and Rogier van der Weyden were important Northern Renaissance artists, but none painted this portrait.