Klimt’s The Kiss: 23.75-Karat Gold, 27 Years with Emilie Flöge, and the Belvedere Purchase

Last updated: May 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) is the central figure of the Vienna Sezession — the Austrian Symbolist and decorative art movement that broke from the academic tradition in 1897 — and the painter who most consistently and most ornamentally deployed gold in Western painting since the Byzantine and Gothic traditions. The Kiss is his most celebrated work and the consummation of his Golden Period: a painting in which actual 23.75-karat gold leaf is applied directly to the canvas surface as a medium, not as a colour but as a material. The original is at the Belvedere Vienna, where it is Austria’s most visited work of art. DeckArts Berlin from ~$140.

The Painting: Actual Gold, Not Gold Paint

Der Kuss (The Kiss, 1907–08, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 180 × 180 cm, Belvedere Vienna) is a square-format painting depicting two figures in an embrace on a flower-dotted precipice. The figures are partially identifiable as a man and a woman from their different ornamental patterns (the man’s robe is decorated with rectangular black-and-white geometric forms; the woman’s robe is decorated with circular floral forms) and from the difference in their faces: the woman’s face is visible, turned sideways toward the viewer; the man’s face is turned toward the woman’s and not visible to the viewer. They are surrounded by an aureole of gold that rises behind them and extends across the composition’s upper zone.

The gold is actual gold leaf — specifically 23.75-karat gold (approximately 99% pure gold), the same purity used in Byzantine manuscript illumination and medieval altarpiece gilding. Klimt applied the gold leaf to the canvas surface in sections, over a prepared oil ground, before adding the ornamental painted details on top. The gold leaf is not a paint colour mixed to approximate gold’s appearance; it is the physical metallic substance, approximately 0.1 micrometres thick per leaf, applied by hand in sheets to the prepared ground.

The specific optical property of actual gold leaf that distinguishes it from gold paint: gold leaf at 23.75-karat purity reflects the warm spectrum at near 100% efficiency — it absorbs almost no warm-wavelength light and reflects essentially all of it. Under warm LED at 2700K, this produces the specific quality of self-luminosity: the gold appears to emit light rather than merely reflect it, because the warm LED’s warm wavelengths are reflected at near 100% efficiency back toward the viewer. Gold paint mixed from pigment and binder cannot replicate this reflectance efficiency; it absorbs a fraction of the warm light and reflects less. The difference between actual gold leaf and gold paint under warm light is immediately visible to the eye.

Klimt’s Biography: The Vienna Sezession and Emilie Flöge

Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, then a suburb of Vienna, the son of a gold engraver — the biographical connection to gold as a working material is direct. He trained at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) and worked throughout the 1880s as a successful academic mural and ceiling painter for major public buildings in Vienna, including the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Burgtheater. His early work was conventional, academic, and commercially successful.

The transformation came in 1897, when Klimt co-founded the Vienna Sezession — a group of Austrian artists who withdrew from the official artists’ society (the Künstlerhaus) to establish an independent exhibiting organisation committed to the total integration of fine art and decorative design, the elimination of the hierarchy between “high” art and “applied” art, and the engagement of Austrian art with international avant-garde movements (Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Japanese decorative art). The Sezession’s motto: “Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit” (“To every age its art, to art its freedom”) — still visible above the Sezession building’s entrance in Vienna.

Klimt resigned from the Sezession in 1905, after disagreements about the direction of the organisation. He continued to produce major works independently until his death from a stroke on 6 February 1918, at the age of 55. He died with several works unfinished, including a major portrait of Johanna Staude that was left in progress at his studio.

Emilie Flöge: 27 Years, Not a Wife

Emilie Louise Flöge (1874–1952) was Klimt’s lifelong companion and the primary emotional relationship of his adult life. Their connection began in approximately 1891 — she was 17, he was 29 — through the Flöge family’s connection to Klimt’s brother Ernst (who married Emilie’s sister Helene in 1891). Ernst Klimt died in 1892, the year after his marriage; Gustav maintained the connection to the Flöge family through Emilie, and the relationship deepened over the following decade into what was by any measure a primary partnership.

Klimt and Flöge never married. Whether their relationship was physically intimate has been debated by scholars: Klimt had several documented relationships with other women and fathered at least 14 children by various mothers (none of them Emilie). Flöge herself never married and never publicly discussed her relationship with Klimt in personal terms. What is documented: they spent summers together at the Attersee in Upper Austria for approximately 20 years; Klimt designed reform-dress clothing for Flöge’s Vienna fashion salon (Schwestern Flöge, founded 1904, which became one of the most celebrated fashion salons in Vienna); and when Klimt suffered his fatal stroke in 1918, his reported last word before losing consciousness was “Emilie.”

The figures in The Kiss are widely believed to be self-portraits of Klimt and Flöge: the man’s robe pattern, the woman’s face, and the composition’s intimacy all correspond to the specific quality of the Klimt-Flöge relationship as documented in photographs from their Attersee summers. The identification is not confirmed by documentary evidence but is accepted by most art historians as the most probable interpretation.

The Golden Period: 1904–1909

Klimt’s Golden Period refers to the years 1904–1909, during which he produced his most gold-intensive works: the Beethoven Frieze (1902, Sezession building Vienna, secco and gold), the Stoclet Frieze (1905–11, Palais Stoclet Brussels, gold mosaic cartoons), Judith I (1901, Belvedere Vienna), Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (“The Woman in Gold”, 1907, Neue Galerie New York), and The Kiss (1907–08). All of these works use actual gold leaf or gold-adjacent metallic materials as primary compositional elements — not as decorative accents but as the ground from which the figures emerge.

The Golden Period’s programme: Klimt was synthesising the Byzantine and medieval Christian tradition of gold ground painting (in which gold represents divine light) with the Japanese tradition of gold-ground decorative painting (in which gold represents atmospheric space and decorative richness) and the Wiener Werkstätte’s programme of integrating fine art with high-end decorative design. The Kiss is the fullest realisation of this programme: the gold ground is simultaneously divine light, decorative space, and the specific material richness of the Wiener Werkstätte’s applied arts vocabulary.

25,000 Kronen: The Belvedere Purchase

The Kiss was purchased directly from Klimt’s studio by the Imperial-Royal Austrian State Gallery (the predecessor of today’s Belvedere) in 1908, for 25,000 Kronen, during the Kunstschau exhibition in Vienna where it was first shown. This was the highest price ever paid for a Klimt painting at that point and represented a significant public investment in contemporary Austrian art by the imperial state.

The specific historical context: the 1908 Kunstschau (“art show”) was the first major exhibition of Klimt’s work after his resignation from the Sezession in 1905. The Kunstschau also introduced the work of the 18-year-old Egon Schiele and the 20-year-old Oskar Kokoschka to the Viennese public for the first time. The state’s purchase of The Kiss at the Kunstschau was an explicit endorsement of Klimt’s post-Sezession programme and a signal that Austrian official culture was willing to accept the ornamental symbolism of his Golden Period as the nation’s representative contemporary art.

The Belvedere’s purchase has never been contested for provenance: The Kiss passed directly from artist to public institution without passing through private hands. Unlike many significant Klimt works (including the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which was looted by the Nazis and restituted to the Bloch-Bauer family in 2006 in the “Woman in Gold” case), The Kiss has a clean provenance. Belvedere official Kiss page.

The Belvedere Vienna: Austria’s Most Visited Work

The Belvedere is a baroque palace complex in Vienna built for Prince Eugene of Savoy in the early 18th century (Upper Belvedere 1721–1723, Lower Belvedere 1714–1716). It was converted into a public art museum in the late 19th century and now holds the most comprehensive collection of Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the largest collection of Klimt works in the world. The Kiss is displayed in the Upper Belvedere’s permanent collection and is consistently the museum’s most visited work — and Austria’s most visited single work of art.

The Belvedere also holds Klimt’s Judith I (1901) — the first major Gold Period work — and a significant collection of works by Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. The Belvedere’s official page on The Kiss includes high-resolution photography and scholarship.

The Kiss on a Skateboard Deck: Gold from the Dark

The Kiss single deck (~$140) on deep navy or forest green is the most dramatically beautiful DeckArts installation for the specific reason that the gold’s advance from the cool dark is a physical optical phenomenon, not merely a compositional choice. Under 2700K warm LED from a directed ceiling track spot, the UV archival print’s warm gold-adjacent tones advance from the navy or forest green ground at maximum warm luminosity — the closest available domestic approximation of the specific experience of seeing actual gold leaf on a dark ground under directed warm light.

The specific installation: single deck (~$140) on deep navy (#1B2A4A) above the bed. Directed warm LED ceiling track spot at 2700K, 90–120 cm from wall, 30–40 degrees from vertical. Warm LED bedside lamps at 2700K. Dark navy wall, warm amber maple grain visible at deck edges, gold-adjacent warm tones of The Kiss floating from the continuous dark ground. The most romantically and optically specific bedroom installation at DeckArts.

Why the DeckArts single deck crop works for The Kiss: the original is 180×180 cm square — vastly wider than the 20 cm deck. The crop concentrates on the two figures’ heads, the embrace, and the upper zone of the gold robe aureole — removing the flower-dotted precipice below and concentrating on the composition’s emotional and chromatic core. The concentrated crop of the two faces and the gold at close range is more emotionally intense than the full square composition, because it strips away the compositional context and leaves only the essential confrontation of the two faces in the gold.

Room-by-Room Installation Guide

Bedroom above the bed (primary recommendation): Single deck (~$140) on deep navy or forest green. Art centre 165–170 cm from floor or 15–20 cm above headboard (whichever is higher). Directed warm LED 2700K ceiling track spot. The gold-from-dark advance above the bed: the most romantic primary bedroom installation at DeckArts. Wedding gift, anniversary gift, romantic bedroom statement. See: Skateboard Wall Art for a Bedroom.

Living room accent (secondary wall or above console): Single deck (~$140) on forest green or navy beside the primary sofa wall. The Kiss as a secondary accent rather than primary statement: the gold event in the peripheral visual field, the romantic note beside the authoritative primary installation (Night Watch triptych or Starry Night triptych). See: Skateboard Wall Art for a Living Room.

Hallway (warm gold threshold): Single deck on forest green or navy at the end wall. Gold from dark at the threshold: the 27-year partnership’s depicted embrace as the first and last image of the domestic interior. See: Skateboard Wall Art for a Hallway.

Art Nouveau or MCM living room (warm white): Single deck on warm white or mustard yellow. On warm white, The Kiss is a warm-on-warm event — the gold advances from the warm neutral ground as a precious warm accent. Less dramatically beautiful than the dark wall installation but more integrated into warm-neutral Japandi-adjacent or MCM palette rooms. See: Skateboard Wall Art for Mid-Century Modern Interiors.

Klimt The Kiss — Single Deck (~$140)

23.75-karat gold · deep navy or forest green · bedroom above bed · wedding gift · UV archival 100+ years · Canadian maple · ships Berlin

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FAQ

Does Klimt’s The Kiss use real gold?

Yes. Klimt used 23.75-karat gold leaf (approximately 99% pure gold) applied directly to the canvas surface. This is actual metallic gold, not gold paint. Gold leaf at 23.75 karats reflects the warm spectrum at near 100% efficiency — producing the specific self-luminous quality that gold paint cannot replicate. Under 2700K warm LED, the gold-adjacent UV archival tones in the DeckArts reproduction advance at maximum warm luminosity from a cool dark wall (navy or forest green). DeckArts from ~$140. Belvedere Vienna.

Who are the figures in Klimt’s The Kiss?

Widely believed to be Klimt and Emilie Flöge, his companion of approximately 27 years (c.1891–1918). Not confirmed by documentary evidence but accepted by most art historians. The man’s robe pattern (geometric rectangular forms) and the woman’s face correspond to Klimt and Flöge as documented in photographs from their Attersee summers. They never married; Klimt fathered at least 14 children by other women; his last reported word before his fatal stroke was “Emilie.” DeckArts from ~$140.

Where is Klimt’s The Kiss?

The Kiss (1907–08, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 180×180 cm) is in the permanent collection of the Belvedere in Vienna, Austria, where it has been since 1908, purchased directly from Klimt’s studio for 25,000 Kronen at the Kunstschau exhibition. The Belvedere is open to the public; see belvedere.at for opening hours. DeckArts produces a UV archival reproduction on Canadian maple from ~$140.

Related Guides

• Skateboard Wall Art for a Bedroom: Where to Hang It, What Size
• Skateboard Wall Art as a Gift: Complete Guide by Occasion
• LED Lighting for Classical Wall Art: Why 2700K Is Mandatory
• Skateboard Wall Art for a Hallway: The Threshold Concept
• Skateboard Wall Art for Mid-Century Modern Interiors

Article Summary

Klimt The Kiss: Der Kuss 1907–08, oil and 23.75-karat gold leaf on canvas, 180×180 cm, Belvedere Vienna (purchased 1908 for 25,000 Kronen direct from studio at Kunstschau). Actual gold leaf (not paint): 23.75 karats ≈99% pure, ~0.1 micrometres per sheet, reflects warm spectrum at near 100% efficiency under 2700K — self-luminous quality impossible with gold paint. Klimt biography: born 1862 Baumgarten (father gold engraver), Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, academic murals 1880s, co-founded Vienna Sezession 1897 (motto “To every age its art, to art its freedom”), resigned Sezession 1905, died stroke 6 Feb 1918. Emilie Flöge: companion from c.1891 (27 years), never married, Klimt fathered 14+ children by other women, 20 Attersee summers documented, designed clothes for Flöge’s Vienna salon, last word “Emilie.” Figures = Klimt + Flöge (widely accepted, not documentary confirmed). Golden Period 1904–1909: Beethoven Frieze, Stoclet Frieze, Judith I, Woman in Gold, The Kiss. The Kiss clean provenance (direct artist → state, no Nazi looting unlike Woman in Gold 2006 restitution). Belvedere: Austria’s most visited work. On deck: concentrated crop (faces, embrace, gold aureole — removes flower precipice); navy or forest green wall; directed 2700K track spot; gold-adjacent UV archival tones advance at maximum luminosity. Installation: bedroom above bed navy/forest green (most romantic); living room accent (gold beside Night Watch or Starry Night); hallway gold threshold (27-year partnership as threshold emblem); MCM/warm white (warm-on-warm adjacent harmony). DeckArts from ~$140. Canadian maple. UV archival 100+ years. Berlin. 30-day return.

About the Author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of DeckArts and a creative director from Ukraine based in Berlin.