in a church, the candle may allude to the presence of the Holy Ghost or the ever-present eye of God. Alternatively, Margaret Koster posits that the painting is a memorial portrait, as the single lit candle on Giovanni's side contrasts with the burnt-out candle whose wax stub can just be seen on his wife's side, in a visual play on a common metaphor: he lives on, she is dead. The cherries present on the tree outside the window may symbolize love. The oranges which lie on the window sill and chest may symbolize the purity and innocence that reigned in the Garden of Eden before the Fall of Man. They were uncommon and a sign of wealth in the Netherlands, but in Italy were a symbol of fecundity in marriage. More simply, the fruit could be a sign of the couple's wealth, since oranges were very expensive imports. The male subject's over-shoes, called pattens, were a covering for indoor footwear that were made as protection from the outdoor elements. The idea that he has taken his off may imply that he would no longer stray, hinting at his fidelity towards his wife, potentially signifying that, for religious reasons, he would not remarry after her death. This is further used as proof that the female subject was painted posthumously, which is a theory widely accepted. In January 2018 the woman's dress was the subject of the BBC Four programme A Stitch in Time with fashion historian Amber Butchart. Provenance The provenance of the painting begins in 1435 when it was dated by van Eyck and presumably owned by the sitter(s). At some point before 1516 it came into the possession of Don Diego de Guevara (d. Brussels 1520), a Spanish career courtier of the Habsburgs (himself the subject of a fine portrait by Michael Sittow in the National Gallery of Art). He lived most of his life in the Netherlands, and may have known the Arnolfinis in their later years. By 1516 he had given the portrait to Margaret of Austria, Habsburg Regent of the Netherlands, when it shows up as the first item in an inventory of her paintings, made in her presence at Mechelen. The item says (in French): "a large picture which is called Hernoul le Fin with his wife in a chamber, which was given to Madame by Don Diego, whose arms are on the cover of