Portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini

Thus, the work is van Eyck's second portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, a wealthy merchant from Lucca, a city in Tuscany in central Italy, who spent most of his life in Flanders.

It may relate to finance and trade, it might be a type of international credit note that was then just being introduced to European banking.

As with van Eyck's other single-head portraits, the frame would have contained inscriptions giving the date of completion.

[1] That van Eyck painted two portraits of Arnolfini has led to speculation he was a friend of the artist.

[2] In 1857, Crowe and Cavalcaselle linked the London double portrait with the early 16th-century inventories of Margaret of Austria, and established the sitters as Giovanni [di Arrigo] Arnolfini and his (possibly already deceased) wife, Giovanna Cenami.