This portrait by Jan van Eyck is dated to 1434 (see signature and date on the back wall). It is believed to show the merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami, though that is not entirely safe to say – please read the corresponding Wikipedia entry for more information.
The interesting thing about this portrait is that it has almost photorealistic quality. You can really see everything very well, from the dagged (slashed or pinked) sleeve decorations, to the fur on her dress, to the tiny pleats in her veil (Kruseler), to even her fine braids of hair. Also, there’s a mirror on the back wall which (more or less) shows the garments from the backside as well.
The bride wears a striking green wool dress, which is trimmed with fur. Beneath this, she’s wearing a blue (damask) gown, of which at least the skirt hem is trimmed with fur as well.
Here’s my dress diary of this dresses’ reproduction.
This picture shows the piles of fabric which I initially chose to make the dress. I later discovered that I wouldn’t need all of them, but more on that subject later.
The cream fabric is 14 meters / ~16 yards of a nice, fulled yet not too thick wool, which I will first dye blue, then yellow, to achieve the green color of the gown.
The green fabric in front of that will become a partial lining of the gown.
The blue damask (top right) will become the underdress.
The flower fabric under it (which actually is old bedding) was supposed to become the lining of the underdress.
For the fur trimming, I have an old fur coat at hand (real fur) which I can take apart.
Here’s a comparison between the painting and my blue damask. I’ll dye that together with the blue batch of the wool to intensify the color a bit. The size is ‘lifesize’, comparing her underarm / my underarm / the size of the damask pattern, btw.
You’ve probably noticed that the supposed lining for the overdress is two colors – light and dark green. I don’t have enough of either to line the entire gown, but both together will work. I’ll probably use the dark green for the insides of the sleeves, and the lighter green for the rest of the gown, possibly pieced with some dark green (since the gown without sleeves takes up LOTS of fabric).
(the ‘strip’ at the bottom shows the colors after the first dye). STILL not satisfying. So I dyed a THIRD batch.
And YES, that was it for me. The green isn’t as yellow as in the portrait, but since my complexion doesn’t like yellow too much, I’m quite happy with the dark green-blueish wool that you can see in this picture. Also, since I basically dyed the wool fabric FIVE times in HOT water, I was left with just ELEVEN yards of ~44 inches / 110cm wide fabric instead of the SIXTEEN yards of 56 in / 150cm wide fabric. I doubt that the wool would have shrinked even more if I would have risked ANOTHER dye, but I didn’t want to risk it.
While the wool was dyeing (which was a process that took several days – dyeing, washing, drying, not being satisfied, re-dyeing… etc…), I used the blue damask to make a simple underdress from the three meters / ~3.5 yards of damask that I had.
You’ll notice that the sleeves seem too long.
so I needed the sleeves to be a bit longer than usual. I then left the dress alone to hang out on the mannequin because the skirt needs to be able to stretch (as the sides of it run on the bias), since I will later add fur trim to the hem and can’t risk that it stretches more when I do that. So back to the subject of the underdress later.
Let me do a sidestep to explain the ‘pregnancy’ theory on the painting. Many people think that Giovanna must be (very!) pregnant in the painting. This, however, is just wrong.
…and THEN imagine that this wouldn’t be thin lining taffeta, but lining taffeta plus wool PLUS a fur lining (you can clearly see the inside of the green gown’s skirt – it’s also lined with fur!).
After making the lining, I started on the dress – on the sleeve decoration, to be precise.
I then added those strips to one sleeve. Turned out I didn’t have enough strips, so I cut some more. In the end, with the second sleeve, I cut no less than 32.5 meters (35.5 yds) of cross strips, meaning 16.25m / 17.75 yds per sleeve (!!!). And no, that was neither fun, nor fast, nor interesting after the first few meters / yards – but it had to be done.
and I HATED it. It looked like a giant green TENT. Plus, ‘flattering’ wasn’t exactly how I would describe the shape.
First, the belt has to come up higher. As in, approximately four inches higher.
Secondly, the ‘starburst’ pleating at the front is wrong. Of course, since it’s not pinned yet.
Thirdly, the entire dress looks like a tent, because the sides flare out so much from the belt, while in the painting, the pleating (over the belt) goes towards the front and seems to be nonexistant at the sides – from which I conclude that the dress must be very smooth and figure-hugging at those sides (hidden by the sleeves).
So what I basically did was to reshape the lining of the overdress, by pinning, then sewing away the excess fabric from armholes down to the waist, so that it’s VERY snug to the body.
Also, if you look closely, you’ll notice that my starburst’s ‘rays’ (=the pleats) look ‘wavy’. That’s because they’re held in position with pins. The waves will disappear as soon as I have hand-basted the pleats to the lining.
Also, I started making the veil (which is called a ‘Kruseler’ in Germany).
For that, I used handkerchief linien. I then cut 25 yards of 2” wide bias strips from it, to make the ruffles. One side of the bias strips was rolled and acted as a hem, the other side was gathered and sewn down on two wide pieces of fabric (which become the ‘base fabric’ of the veil).
Some pics taken in the garden. Underdress has the fur on the hem; overdress has lacings on the back (not yet with the correct laces, though). Still need to add fur to the neckline and hem of the overdress and the braided pieces to the underdresses’ sleeves. Also, still wondering what to do with the underdresses’ neckline.
The hair of the fur I used is much longer. I think what we see on her gown is white mink, while I used white fox fur.
The color of the overdress isn’t like in the painting. I’m not unhappy about that; a yellowish green would have made me look ‘dead’, while the blueish green still works.
My hanging sleeves are about four to six inches shorter than hers.
My sleeve dagging (the pinked decorations at the bottom of the hanging sleeve) is larger than on her gown.
My train is a good yard shorter than hers; also I think my green overdress is about half a yard shorter than hers at the front.
The braided cuffs on my underdress are a tad wider than hers.
All those differences aside, I think it’s a well recognizable reproduction of the Arnolfini portrait gown.
a mix of approximately 10 more packages in all possible shades between yellow and blue.
About two weeks of sewing (14 days) with approximately 7-10 hours per day (every day!); resulting in approximately 100 hours of work before the dress was finished.
My husband has just found a book about Beatrice D’Este and I found your website by looking her up. Congratulations on the wonderful things you do.