The archive / Art Nouveau / The Kiss
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The Kiss
Gustav Klimt · 1862–1918
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3 variations + a matched story print, every standard frame ratio. 300 DPI · sRGB · personal-use license.
Museum-quality giclée on Hahnemühle German Etching — heavyweight 310gsm, acid-free, velvety matte. Made to order & shipped.
Sizes in the download
Ready-to-print files at every size below — each drops straight into a standard frame at 300 DPI, nothing cropped:
Each of these also prints big-wall at 150 DPI — up to about 36″ on the short side (so the 20×20″ becomes 36×36″), for a step-back view. Or print the borderless master, the full-resolution scan, sharp to about 24×24″.
The work
Real gold, silver and platinum, worked into the canvas.
For the two embracing figures Klimt used actual precious-metal leaf — gold, silver and platinum — together with resin-oil colours on a zinc-white-primed canvas. The background is composition gold, a glaze of brass, scattered with flakes of metal leaf.
By another name
It was first shown simply as 'Lovers.'
When Klimt exhibited the painting at the 1908 Kunstschau in Vienna, it carried the title 'Liebespaar' — Lovers. The name by which the world now knows it, 'The Kiss' (Der Kuss), only became established by the autumn of 1909.
Why it matters
The state bought it on the spot, for a small fortune.
The Austrian Ministry of Art acquired the work directly from Klimt at that 1908 show, where it entered the Moderne Galerie, forerunner of today's Belvedere. The price was around 25,000 crowns — more than half the cost of a stately villa, and far above the 8,000 to 10,000 crowns Klimt charged for a portrait.
The file & the facts
- Title
- The Kiss
- Artist
- Gustav Klimt
- Year
- 1908
- Medium
- Oil & gold leaf on canvas
- Original
- 180 × 180 cm
- Collection
- Belvedere, Vienna
- Rights
- Open access · personal use
- File
- 300 DPI · sRGB · JPEG
