The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s monumental bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair lovers located on the smaller right-hand column. The Kiss, the sculpture, was originally titles Francesca da Rimini. It shows the 13th century Italian noblewoman immortalized in Dante’s Inferno, who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta’s younger brother Paolo. They fall in love while reading the book of Lancelot and Guinevere. The two are found and killed by Francesca’s husband.
