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The Kiss
Gustav Klimt
The high point of Klimt's Golden Period, and a metal-leaf surface that cannot be touched, cleaned or flexed.
- Artist
- Gustav Klimt
- Date
- 1907–1908
- Medium
- Oil, gold and silver leaf on canvas
- Dimensions
- 180 × 180 cm
- Location
- Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna
History
What the record shows
Painted at the peak of the Vienna Secession, drawing on Byzantine mosaics Klimt had studied in Ravenna.
It was bought by the Austrian state directly from the 1908 Kunstschau, before the exhibition had even closed.
Applied gold and silver leaf lifts and cracks under vibration and humidity change. The Belvedere does not lend the work.
Provenance
Chain of ownership
- 01Purchased from the Kunstschau, Vienna, by the Moderne Galerie, 1908
- 02Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, continuously since
