The Wedding

Art Encounters is a wonderful new fiction series designed to introduce young readers to great painters. This series brings famous works of art to life through thrilling and evocative stories that reflect the individual paintings featured, not unlike The Girl with a Pearl Earring. Each book in the series will focus on the style, techniques, and influences of great painters such as O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Jan van Eyck, and Paul Gauguin. "The Arnolfini Wedding" Is the bride pregnant? Why does the groom look so old? What's reflected in the mirror? The Arnolfini Wedding is surely the most hotly debated painting of the Northern Renaissance--and one of the most beloved. In this historical romance, author Elizabeth Marrafino-Rees weaves a rich story of love and honor that answers the questions about this great picture. Young Giovanna Cenami falls in love with Angelo, the heir of the Grimaldi family - the archrivals of the Giovanna's family. Angered, her family pushes her to marry the wealthy merchant, Giovanni Arnolfini.
Slowly, Giovanna travels the road to Lucca, gradually coming to love her much-older suitor and to admire the mastery and humanity of her portraitist, Jan van Eyck - qualities that are nowhere more evident than in "The Arnolfini Wedding."