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34 Artworks About Love at the National Gallery

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From first kisses to tragic romances, our collection abounds with love, in all its forms.

Here we’ve selected some of our favorites, including works you can see in the galleries plus hidden treasures from our storerooms. Enjoy classics ranging from Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss and Pablo Picasso’s The Lovers to contemporary photographs and prints portraying family bonds, close friendships, and lovers, of course.

Explore more hidden treasures from our collection, including wintry scenes, food in art, and our spookiest works.

Kissing Booth

Pucker up! Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss isn’t the only artwork to evoke a romantic smooch. French sculptor Auguste Rodin made several works portraying embracing couples. In Rodin’s The Kiss the tangled figures nearly obscure the meeting of their mouths.

A man and woman embrace and kiss while sitting on a rocky formation in this free-standing bronze sculpture. Both people are nude, and they turn toward each other. In this photograph, to our right, the slender woman reaches her left arm, closer to us, up to wrap around the man’s neck. Her left breast is silhouetted against the man’s muscular chest. The woman’s raised arm covers most of their faces but the man turns his head down to meet hers. The man rests his right hand, closer to us, on her hip and she hooks one leg over his. His knees are angled to our left and he turns his torso toward her. The woman’s left toes brush his foot, just below hers. They sit on a textured, rock-like form. The surface of sculpture has a golden-brown patina, which darkens where the bodies fold and crease. The artist’s name is stamped into the seat, just below the woman’s hip: “RODIN.”
Auguste Rodin, The Kiss (Le Baiser), model 1880-1887, cast c. 1898/1902, bronze, Gift of Mrs. John W. Simpson, 1942.5.15
Jim Goldberg, The Sugar Daddy's Motel Room, 1988, printed 1994, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Betsy Karel), 2015.19.4837

Young Love

Do you remember your first kiss or school dance? These works embrace the sweet, and sometimes awkward, early romances. Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee’s formal portrait of a tiny bride and groom takes pretend weddings to the next level.

James Van Der Zee, Mock Wedding, c. 1930, gelatin silver print, Avalon Fund, 2019.127.11
A boy leads a girl by her hand across three wooden steps that allow for passage over a fence in this horizontal watercolor. The fence spans the width of the paper, but angles slightly away from us as it moves off to our left. The fence is made up of four widely spaced horizontal rails across vertical posts. The boy and girl face away from us but have pale or tanned skin and brown hair. The girl is on our side of the fence, her front foot on the top step. She wears a long white dress edged with ruffles and shaded with slate blue. Her hair is tied with a blue ribbon, and another ribbon flies from the back of her straw-colored hat. The boy begins to step down on the far side of the fence. He wears tan overalls, a gray shirt, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The ankle we can see is bare. A tree branch with dark green leaves dips down into the scene from the upper right corner. A wash of dark green on the far side of the fence suggests a shrub in an otherwise flat field of fresh, celery green. The top rail of the fence overlaps the horizon, where a light blue hill rises to fill much of the upper half of the composition. A narrow wedge of cream-white sky angles into our view at the top left. The artist signed the lower right corner, “HOMER.”
Winslow Homer, On the Stile, 1878, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on wove paper, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1994.59.23
Jim Goldberg, Hollywood and Highland (#2), 1986, printed 1994, gelatin silver print, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Betsy Karel), 2015.19.4741

Family Bonds

These works remind us to share the love with our families, whether biological or chosen.

In François-Hubert Drouais’s self-portrait with his family, the French painter’s daughter gifts her mother a bouquet of flowers, while Drouais reads her a poem, or possibly a love letter.

We look slightly down onto a young woman sitting in an upholstered chair and tightly hugging a nude, blond child in this vertical, colored print. Both have pale, peach-toned skin. The woman’s black hair is pulled back though a couple tendrils curl on her forehead. Her eyes are downcast and her pink lips parted. She wears a long, cream-white dress dotted with blush-pink, petal-like forms. One arm is under the baby’s chubby bottom and the other braces the child behind the shoulders. The baby wraps their arms around the woman’s neck so they are cheek to cheek. The chair sits in front of a bed with a boxy frame and a pillowy white mattress. The upholstery on the woman’s chair and the wallpaper behind her are patterned with coral-pink flowers and vines against butter yellow. The floor is also coral pink. A mark with an oval, or a mirrored C, over an uppercase M, is stamped in royal blue at the bottom center of the print. The sheet is inscribed with graphite across the right half of the bottom margin, “Edition de 25 épreuves Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy Mary Cassatt.”
Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1890-1891, color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.255
Bessie Potter Vonnoh, The Kiss, 1906, bronze, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of Bessie Potter Vonnoh Keyes), 2015.19.3743
A woman sitting in an upholstered chair near a vanity table touches the hair of the little girl leaning against her lap to our left, as a man leans onto the back of her chair to our right in this vertical portrait painting. The people all have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and their pale gray hair is pulled back and curled. Their pink lips curve in slight smiles, and light glinting off of much of the fabric suggests they wear satin or silk. The woman’s body is angled to our left, toward the girl, but she turns her head back to look up over her other shoulder with gray eyes. A voluminous, cream-white cloth drapes over her shoulders and lap, over a bodice covered in lilac-purple bows and ribbons. Her gold satin skirt falls around her feet. The little girl leans onto one arm on the woman’s lap as she turns to look at us with pale blue eyes. The girl’s forget-me-not-blue dress has a fitted bodice, elbow-length sleeves over white cuffs, a long, full skirt, and white ruffles along the collar. The woman holds blue flowers in the girl’s hair, and the girl’s forearm wraps around a bundle of pink and red flowers in the woman’s lap. The chair is upholstered in teal blue and has a gold frame and a row of gold nail heads along the padded back and arm. The man leans one forearm against the back of the chair as he looks down at the girl. In that hand, he holds a folded piece of paper with writing. He wears a loose jacket decorated with gold pagodas, pink and yellow flowers, and spruce-green leaves against a brown background. Foamy white lace falls back from his cuffs and hangs down from the high white collar of his undershirt. He wears brick-red, knee-length britches, white stockings, and black shoes with silver buckles. His other hand is planted against his hip, and one ankle is crossed in front of the other. A vanity draped with a white cloth sits on the far side of the woman and girl, along the left edge of the painting. It holds gold and glass vessels and boxes, and a rounded mirror at the back is draped with dark pink cloth. The lower half of a window behind the vanity is covered by a white cloth, and the panes continue beyond the top of the canvas. A teal-blue curtain hangs along the right edge of the window, at the corner of the room. A clock with a gold case of swirling, carved designs hangs high on the peanut-brown wall behind the man. On the floor near the chair, blue and white striped tissue paper, a rose-pink ribbon, and a strand of pearls drape over the edges of an open box. Writing along the front edge of the lid of the box reads, “Fs. Drouais. Ce 1 avril. 1756.” A pink rose lies near the girl’s feet, to our left.
François-Hubert Drouais, Family Portrait, 1756, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.4
American 20th Century, James Van Der Zee, Portrait of a Family, c. 1940, gelatin silver print, Avalon Fund, 2019.127.2
Charles A. Nast, Detroit Photographic Company, Ute Chief Severo and Family, c. 1885, published 1900, photo-chromolithograph, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon, 2006.170.21

“Palentine’s” Day

Celebrate the one you love like a sibling, whether it be by enjoying an ice cream cone like friends in American artist Isabel Bishop’s drawing below or just spending some time together as in Sisters by French impressionist painter Berthe Morisot.

Shown from the lap up, two women with pale skin and dark hair pulled up and back, wearing white dresses with baby-blue polka dots, sit on a couch in this horizontal portrait painting. Both women have straight, dark brows, delicate noses, smooth skin, and their small, rose-pink mouths are closed. Wispy bangs brush their foreheads, and their hair is piled high with long ringlets falling down their backs. Both wear black ribbons like chokers around their necks. Their dresses have high necks with ruffles along the necklines, ruffles at the wrists, and are gathered under the bust. They sit angled in toward each other. The woman on our left has black hair, and she looks down and to our right with dark eyes. She wears a gold ring with a dark, oval stone on one hand resting in her lap. The other woman has chestnut-brown hair and looks down and off to our left with ice-blue eyes. She holds an open fan in her hands in her lap. The fabric on the couch has vertical white and lilac-purple stripes, and is overlaid with a pattern of pink flowers and green leaves. A framed picture hanging on the bone-white wall behind the women shows an arched painting against a sky-blue background. A few spiky leaves from a houseplant are cut off by the left edge of the painting. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, especially in the couch and background. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “Berthe Morisot.”
Berthe Morisot, The Sisters, 1869, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs, 1952.9.2
Isabel Bishop, Friends, 1942, etching in black with pen and black ink on laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the artist), 2015.19.796
Marie Laurencin, In the Park, 1924, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.158

Broken Hearts

Artists like Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch have illustrated the longing for love, while a 16th-century drawing called “Do Not Eat Your Heart Out” reminds us not to get too sad. The unknown French artist shows a woman using giant forceps to remove a bleeding heart.

Edvard Munch, The Heart (Hjertet), 1898 - 1899, woodcut in black, green, and red on Japan paper, The Epstein Family Collection, given by their children, David, James, Richard, Miles and Sarah Carianne, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.32.1
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, Le Béguin (The Crush), 1921, etching in black on laid paper, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of Frank B. Bristow), 2015.19.1110
A man bows his bald head deeply as he rests his splayed elbows on his thighs in this freestanding plaster sculpture. The long toes of the man’s feet nearly touch, and they are angled to our right in this photograph. He sits on a low surface, also sculpted from plaster, and his long limbs create a cage around his hollowed chest. The surface of the plaster is ivory white in some areas and parchment brown in others. The piece rests on a gray pedestal against gray walls.
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Seated Youth, 1917, composite tinted plaster, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1974.49.1

Newlyweds

Wedding bells are ringing in James Van Der Zee’s and Leonard Freed’s photographs of brides and grooms. Or in the case of Antoine Watteau’s drawing of a wedding procession, a lute player serenades the couple on their way to say their vows.

James Van Der Zee, Richard Benson, Wedding Day, Harlem, 1926, printed 1974, gelatin silver print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2021.22.1.12
Antoine Watteau, The Wedding Procession, c. 1712, red chalk over red chalk counterproof on laid paper, Margaret Mellon Hitchcock Fund, 2000.8.1

Perfect Pairs

Couples are the subject of paintings by Washington, DC–based artist Lois Mailou Jones and French artist Pablo Picasso.

Nancy Andrews’s photograph of Gean Harwood and Bruhs Mero is part of a series of portraits of the gay and lesbian community in America in 1980s and 1990s.

Shown from the hips up, a woman and a man stand side-by-side in front of a window and curtain in this vertical painting. The people and background are painted with mostly flat areas of vivid color, with their bodies and features outlined in black. The man and woman both have paper-white skin, brown hair, straight noses, and small mouths. They stand facing us so the woman’s shoulder slightly overlaps the man’s. The man’s right arm wraps around the woman to rest on the far side of her neck. She holds his left hand with her left hand, both to our right, and her other arm is tucked into her waist. The woman’s head tilts to our right, toward the man, while her shoulders slope slightly away to our left. She looks off to our right with dark eyes under thin brows. Her white shirt is the same color as her skin. A sea green-cloth drapes over her head and one shoulder, and her skirt is buttercup yellow. The man turns his head to look at the woman. His clothing is coral red. The couple stands in front of a mauve-purple curtain on our right and a window with baby-blue panes set within an ash-gray frame on our left. The artist signed the painting in brown in the lower right, “Picasso 23.”
Pablo Picasso, The Lovers, 1923, oil on linen, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.192
Shown from the shoulders up, a woman and man, both with brown skin, look at each other in this horizontal portrait painting. Their bodies are angled toward each other and both have black hair, dark eyebrows, and full, coral-red lips. To our left, the woman faces our right in profile. She has a delicate nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes are painted with black lashes over black eyes, without the white of the eye. A gold disk earring hangs from the ear we can see, and she wears white and royal-blue beads in two necklaces. Her hair is combed or styled close to her head, and a swath of brick-red fabric, flecked with golden yellow, wraps around the back of her neck. A scarf with butter-yellow, denim-blue, and red stripes in a plaid pattern is draped across her shoulders, over a rose-pink garment. To our right, the man’s face is angled toward the woman but we see both eyes and the far cheek. His hair is closely cropped and he has a rounded nose, curving brows, and full cheeks. The shadows and folds of his white garment are painted with streaks of teal blue. The background behind the pair is patterned with bands and geometric designs of mustard yellow, scarlet red, and teal, with some stylized leaves in emerald and forest green. The artist signed the work in red paint in the lower right corner, “Lois M. Jones.”
Lois Mailou Jones, The Lovers (Somali Friends), 1950, casein on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase from the Estate of Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr.), 2015.19.215

Missed Connections

Sometimes, it’s not meant to be. Italian Renaissance painter Titian’s Venus and Adonis shows the goddess clinging to her love before he leaves for a hunt, never to return. Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens’s Agrippina and Germanicus is an imagined double portrait of the husband and wife. Or could it be a portrait of other star-crossed lovers? Hear scholar Mary Beard’s theory about the painting.

Shown from the shoulders up, a man and woman face our left in profile against a dark background in this vertical portrait painting. The woman is situated closer to us so she overlaps the man, whose profile is shifted to our left. The woman’s eye we can see is brown and she looks ahead from under a gently arched eyebrow. She has a pale skin with faintly blushed cheeks, a straight nose, and her pink lips are closed. Her reddish-gold hair is pulled back into a loose knot at the base of her head, and tendrils fall down her neck. Her hair is braided across the crown of her head, which is encircled with a string of pearls and adorned with a red jewel over her forehead. Gossamer-white fabric wraps around the base of her long neck. The man behind her and to our left has a more tan complexion. He looks ahead with brown eyes under lowered eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose and his pink lips are closed. He has auburn-brown hair and wears a burgundy-red robe around his shoulders. The pair occupy a shallow space behind a stone ledge that runs along the bottom edge of this composition. The light that illuminates them from the front creates a halo-like effect on the midnight-blue background behind them. The number "19" is painted in the lower left corner.
Sunil Gupta, Untitled #1, 1988, printed 2020, inkjet print, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2022.23.1
A seated nude woman reaches for and embraces a partially clothed man as he begins to stride away in this horizontal painting. A winged child holds a dove near his face to our left, and two dogs stand to our right of the pair. The woman sits facing away from us, twisting to our right. Her knees are bent with one knee raised as she leans back on her seat and turns to wrap her arms around the man’s chest. Her flushed face looks up toward the man. She has pale skin, and her blond hair is braided and coiled on the back of her head. A sheer white cloth drapes from her left shoulder, along the left side of her body, and over that knee. Her seat is covered with an orchid-pink cloth. The man strides to our right with his shoulders angled in that direction. He turns his head to look at the woman under lowered lids. He has short, curly brown hair, and his pink lips are parted. He wears a steel-blue toga tied in place with a gold band over one shoulder. A horn is tied around his waist with a gold sash. He wears a shin-high, laced sandal on the leg we can see. The arm closer to the woman is held high, that hand gripping a tall staff. He holds the leashes of the two dogs with his other hand, by his side. A pink band is tied around that upper arm. One bronze-brown dog stands facing our right in profile, while the other, closer to us, has a white body and a brown head, which hangs down as it looks to our left. Both dogs have floppy ears, and their mouths are open with their pink tongues hanging out. In the shadows just beyond the woman’s back knee, the winged baby hunches his shoulders while holding the white dove to his cheek. The cherub has short, blond hair, rounded, flushed cheeks, and small white wings. The elbow closer to us rests on a ledge or tree branch. A tree grows up next to the cherub, reaching off the top edge of the painting. A hill rises to our right in the distance, and a rainbow arcs against a pale blue sky screened with parchment-white clouds. A bright white flash in the upper right corner illuminates the trees beneath it.
Titian, Italian 16th Century, Venus and Adonis, c. 1540s/c. 1560-1565, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.84

Vintage Valentines

Need some inspiration for your valentine? Browse some examples, or put pen to paper and send a letter via carrier pigeon as the women are preparing to do in French rococo artist François Boucher’s The Love Letter. Washington, DC, master printmaker Lou Stovall’s vibrant screenprint is topped with the simple words “I Love You."

Lou Stovall, The Workshop, Inc., I Love You, 1970, color screenprint on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Stovall Graphics), 2015.19.2514
Charles White, William Law III, Love Letter, 1971, color lithograph, Gift of June Wayne, 1974.99.158
Inez McCombs, Valentine in Shadow Box, c. 1938, watercolor and graphite on paper, Index of American Design, 1943.8.15933
Manuel G. Runyan, Bookmark (Valentine), c. 1938, watercolor, graphite, and colored pencil on paper, Index of American Design, 1943.8.92

Top image: Lois Mailou Jones, The Lovers (Somali Friends), 1950, casein on canvas, not on view

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