Venetian born Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter, widely known as one of the leading artists of Romanticism in 19th-century Milan. As a young man, the Academy of Venice funded a year of scholarship at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Hayez was prolific in his output of exceptional portraits, political allegories, and the Kiss is considered among his best. A Mixed-Media Painting from Art Chateau.