Le baiser was originally conceived for The Gates of Hell. Although the sculpture is usually dated 1886, the subject was conceived much earlier. A similar group of embracing lovers appears in the clay model of The Gates and was probably executed not long after Rodin received the commission in 1880. There is a clear relationship in both subject and style with Eternal Springtime, which was probably modeled in 1884.

The lovers are from a tale in Dante's Inferno, in which an adulterous passion consumes Francesca da Rimini and her husband's brother Paolo Malatesta. Of all the love stories in Dante, this forbidden liaison, so reminiscent of courtly love, had the greatest resonance for late 19th-Century readers.

Rodin considered the group to be too large for The Gates of Hell and subsequently removed it from the design. Rodin executed a life-size version in painted plaster which he included in his exhibition at the 1887 salon in Brussels. Known as Françoise da Rimini it proved very popular. Rather than ship the sculpture back to Paris, Rodin gave it to his old Belgian friend Paul de Vignes.

On the last day of 1887 Rodin was named to the Légion d'Honneur, and early the next year he received from the French government a commission of 20,000 francs to create a larger-than-life marble version of Françoise da Rimini, for which the state also provided a top-quality block of marble. Work progressed slowly, and the marble sculpture, now known as Le baiser, was finally exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1898.