Considering that the Arnolfini Portrait is a world-famous Dutch masterpiece, why is its home today the National Gallery in London? Though the painting was bought and sold several times, the most dramatic changes in ownership were due to warfare. If we want to put the majority of the blame on a single individual, we can, of course, blame Napoleon Bonaparte.
In contrast to so many similar paintings of this era, we know exactly who painted it: the famous artist Jan Van Eyck. Since his signature is in the middle of the painting, there is no argument. The painting, shows a man and a young woman, holding hands in their bedroom. However, about everything else, there are endless arguments.
The couple is probably an Italian merchant and his wife (who, despite appearances, is probably not pregnant) and this painting is probably documenting their wedding. We probably also know their names. Or…. the woman may be dead and the painting is a commemoration. Or....It is a painted version of a legal contract, giving the woman the right to conduct business while the husband is away. Or….The painting could be interpreted to mean something completely different.
Note. I’ve watched academics literally come to blows over just about nothing. I remember a particularly loud argument about whether or not Billy the Kid was left-handed. (He wasn’t). I thought these arguments would vanish after I started studying art history since artists are, by nature, more culturally refined and gentle. Well, I was half right. The arguments are still there, but I haven’t witnessed any fistfights. Yet.
The painting is loaded with iconography, so that each and every object might have (and has been interpreted as having) several different meanings. The dog at the lady’s feet, for example, may represent fidelity, or lust, or may just be a wedding present from her husband. Or it could simply be the family dog. Or maybe Van Eyck painted the dog to hide a coffee stain.
It is not known exactly how Don Diego purchased the painting from the Arnolfini family, but we may know why. The Spanish Duke appreciated great art, but occasionally he gifted art to the nobility in exchange for favors. He gifted this painting, to the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, Marguerite of Austria.
Marguerite deserves her own blog someday, since she was engaged briefly to the King of England, she was betrothed to the future king of France, she was shipwrecked, she survived trying to commit suicide by leaping out of a tower window, she was widowed twice, and she carried around the embalmed heart of her first husband as a memento. In her spare time, she was also the ruler of the Netherlands and the most powerful woman of her day. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to discuss her now.
Marguerite died of gangrene in December, 1530, at the age of fifty. Though her will left almost all of her property to her older brother, Emperor Charles V, a special provision had been made to leave the Arnolfini portrait to her niece, Marie of Hungary. Not only would Marie receive the painting, but she would succeed Marguerite as the next Regent of the Netherlands.
Eventually, Marie, too, died young and all of her property, including the vast art collection, was left to her nephew, Philip II of Spain. As King and head of the family, Philip II had as one of his main goals to produce male heirs to hold onto Hapsburg possessions. Unfortunately, the Hapsburgs were also deeply committed to a centuries-long program of inbreeding that could only result in their own eventual extinction. For example, Philip’s first wife was his first cousin twice over, while his fourth wife was his niece. Not surprisingly, only one son survived to maturity. Over the generations, eventually the Hapsburg line turned into imbeciles that sat in the corner and licked their own eyebrows—or at least they wanted to.
Philip truly enjoyed his art collection and he appreciated Northern artists, even expanding the collection by buying six Bosch paintings from Don Diego’s son, Felipe, to go with the Bosch artwork he had inherited from Marguerite. The collection of art work became truly impressive.
Subsequent Hapsburg kings were less...“diligent”...about maintaining an accurate inventory of royal artworks. Later inventories rarely include all of the artwork, particularly the works from Northern Europe. Inbreeding rendered Charles II incapable of having children, so he ended up being the last Hapsburg king. Spain needed a new king from a new royal family, so the matter was settled in the traditional manner: The Bourbons of France began their rule after the War of Succession in 1710.
The new French kings did not appreciate Flemish art, and so, most of the Northern art was either ignored or simply stored. For a long time, the Arnolfini Portrait remained the property of the king, but it sort of vanished—no one is exactly sure where it was. Then, in 1794 after the death of King Carlos III, an inventory was taken, and the painting was rediscovered.
The painting was then hung in a retrete. (A modern translation would be “toilet”.) The most likely way to explain this is that the Spanish Bourbons had not only taken over the Spanish art collection, but had adopted their vigorous program of inbreeding. Take Carlos IV, for example, a monarch so incompetent that he can best be described as an “honorary Hapsburg”.
Both Carlos IV and his son, King Ferdinand VII were incredibly inept during a time when all of Europe was undergoing revolutions that threatened the old order. As the two royals angrily quarreled over whose turn it was to misrule Spain, they invited their neighbor across the Pyrenees, Napoleon Bonaparte, to help them settle the dispute.
Napoleon put both fools under house arrest and placed his own brother, Joseph, on the throne of Spain. While undoubtedly a better ruler than either of the previous monarchs—a low bar—the imposition of a Bonaparte upon the throne angered the people of Spain, touching off a civil war that eventually resulted in the invasion by the British Army, with the help of Portuguese troops.
As the new Spanish King, Joseph began “collecting” art, which was something of a family obsession. After his younger brother had made him the French Ambassador to Rome, Joseph had quickly stolen artworks from the Pope and had shipped them home to France. (Unfortunately, the ship sank and all that art was lost.) As soon as Joseph arrived in Spain, Napoleon ordered his older brother to promptly ship “50 masterpieces” to Paris for the planned Museé Napoléon.
Joseph eagerly began gathering the art, but he had no intention of shipping any of the better treasures north of the Pyrenees. Stalling his brother repeatedly, Joseph was planning his own museum, the Museo Josefino. In the meantime, he began looting the art from the Escorial, from various churches, and from the homes of the wealthy, storing his plunder in a damp moldy warehouse near The Prado.
The British Army was superbly led by Arthur Wellesley, the Marquis of Wellington, and the French slowly began losing control of Spain. By January, 1813, Napoleon, realizing that Madrid was lost, blamed the failure on his brother and ordered Joseph to retreat to Valladolid, in order to hold on to Northern Spain. Joseph, predictably waited too late to retreat, delaying while he had canvases cut from their wooden frames, and piled on top of carts that were already loaded with the king’s “special friends”. One soldier reported that the supply train of the retreating army resembled a mobile brothel. The disorganization was further abetted by the large number of civilians, including those who had supported the French, who clogged the roads trying to escape.
Napoleon and Joseph had both underestimated the speed at which Wellesley had pushed towards Madrid. Joseph left much too late and by the time the army reached the town of Vitoria, it was almost too late for any escape for him. All roads were blocked by English troops except for a narrow country road leading to the north. After a brief skirmish, the French army simply fled. Joseph abandoned his coach and his art treasures, fleeing towards France on horseback. The abandoned coach also contained five million gold francs that had been meant to pay the army.
The French wagons, heavily laden with priceless treasure, promptly fell into the hands of British soldiers, who simply went wild looting the French treasures. Despite the strict orders of General Wellesley, little of the treasure was returned to Spain and its restored King Ferdinand. Some of the stolen artwork found its way to London, (including the Rokeby Venus) and other works turned up in France, while still other valuable pieces simply vanished.
Some reports said that the British soldiers broke off the battle early when they discovered the incredible wealth waiting to be “liberated” from the French wagons, dozens of which were labeled Domaine exterieur de S.M. l’Empereur. General Wellesley was so furious that he wrote in a dispatch, “We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.” The general posted guards to prevent the looting of Vitoria, but simply gave up trying to either prevent the looting of Joseph’s supply wagons or to recover the purloined treasures.
Scum or not, the British soldiers gleefully sold and traded the priceless treasure among themselves. For weeks, masterpieces were won and lost as the soldiers gambled among themselves. You can easily imagine the voice of a private gambling by a campfire, “I’ll see your Goya and raise you a Titian.”
The British efforts in Spain were ultimately successful: the French left Spain and Napoleon’s Empire eventually collapsed. In 1815, following his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington. (And we will ignore the fact that a painting by Velasquez, which once hung in the Palacio Real, is still hanging in the Duke’s London home.)
In what was claimed to be just an innocent accident, several years later, British Lieutenant-Colonel James Hay offered to sell the Arnolfini Portrait to the Prince Regent (later King George IV). When questioned on how he came to own the Flemish masterpiece, the much-decorated Hay explained that he had purchased the painting from the owner of a French inn, where he had been recuperating from a wound suffered at the Battle of Waterloo. The fact that Colonel Hay had also been also present at the Battle of Vitoria is a mere “coincidence”.
There are ample reasons for Hay’s wanting us to believe that he had originally purchased the art in France: Looting was against regulations, stolen artwork was legally supposed to be returned to the rightful owner, and artwork recovered by the army that could not be returned for whatever reason, was supposed to be sold, with the proceeds used for the good of the capturing unit. Further complicating the matter, when Wellesley tried to return the few paintings he had managed to recover to King Ferdinand, the grateful monarch magnanimously gave the paintings to Wellington. Colonel Hay, might have been, in fact, guilty of stealing from General Wellesley, the most popular man in England. However, if Hay had purchased the painting in France, it was his to sell. And selling it for a profit was exactly what Hay had in mind.
Hay had a customer in mind: he tried to sell it to the future King of England. After “enjoying” the painting as it hung in Carlton House, his London home, for two years, (it was hung in a little-used room on the third floor), the Prince Regent finally declined to purchase the painting from Hay—partly due to his preference to work done by English artists, but no doubt also partly due to the colonel’s somewhat questionable ownership.
When the masterpiece was returned to Hay, he kept it in his home for a decade until he was posted to Ireland as the commanding officer of the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoons. During his absence, he loaned the painting to an acquaintance, James Wardrop, a London doctor and a family friend. For the next thirteen years, the general saw neither the painting nor the friend.
Doctor Wardrop did not appreciate the painting either, writing, “Colonel James Hay gave me a picture to take care of during his absence from England. It was hung up in a bedroom, where it remained for about thirteen years, during this period it was seen by many visitors, none of whom deemed it worthy of their notice.”
During Hay’s absence, the art market slowly recovered during an unusual period of peace in Europe. Ironically, the sudden flood of stolen Spanish artworks may have primed the pump for the sale of art. Europe, no longer dominated by the French and their disdain for Dutch art, began to appreciate the Northern works of art, so while Hay was in Ireland, his painting slowly appreciated in value.
To conclude, let us recap the provenance. The Flemish painting of an Italian couple was purchased by a Spanish courtier, who gave it to an Austrian duchess, the former Queen of France, who left it to the queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia, who bequeathed it to the Spanish Court, where it was spirited away by the French Army led by a Corsican pretender before being recovered by a British Colonel, who briefly loaned it to an English King, before selling it to a London gallery.
So far.
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