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The Rest Is History

Greatest Paintings: Dawn of the Dutch Golden Age - The Arnolfini Portrait

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 26.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why is Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait perceived as one of the greatest mysteries of the arts? What elements and symbolisms provoke debates about its identity and meaning? And, what do we know about its provenance, its travels through European royal courts, and its influence on Diego Velázquez?  In this new The Rest Is History Club series, Tom is joined by art critic and author Laura Cumming to discuss the histories behind famous paintings and put them in their historical contexts.  To hear the full episode, and all the other exclusive new episodes from Laura and Tom's paintings  series, coming out every Wednesday for the next four weeks, join The Rest is History Club at therestishistory.com FUTURE EPISODES.... Feb 11th: Las Meninas - Diego Velázquez Feb 18th: The Skating Minister - Henry Raeburn Feb 25th: The Angelus - Jean-François Millet  _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek + Harry Swan Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:51.1

Hello everyone. Tom Holland here and I am joined by the great Laura coming and we are looking at painting in history, four paintings that reflect a particular period in history. We'll be looking at the history of the painting itself, the life of the artist, and teasing out the mysteries that shadow all four paintings.

1:13.6

And today we are looking at the Arnolfini portrait by Jan Van Eyck, early 15th century.

1:20.6

And here is a short extract from that episode and you can access the entire thing by going to the rest is history.com and signing up to

1:31.3

the club there and it will be waiting for you. Enjoy.

1:38.3

Hello everybody and welcome to another series of bonuses for you, our beloved club members.

1:50.4

And this time we're going to be doing four episodes, each one, on a famous painting.

1:56.4

And we're going to be situating it in the context of the age,

2:03.0

looking at what it's all about, who the painter was.

2:07.1

And generally, with a lot of the paintings,

2:09.8

there is a sense of mystery.

2:11.1

There's a puzzle.

...

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