[2] The painting shows a woman with long flame-red hair kissing a man on the neck, as the couple embrace.

[1] Although others have seen in it "a man locked in a vampire's tortured embrace – her molten-red hair running along his soft bare skin",[3] Munch himself always claimed it showed nothing more than "just a woman kissing a man on the neck".

[1] The painting was first called Vampire by Munch's friend, the critic Stanisław Przybyszewski.

Przybyszewski saw the painting on exhibition and described it as "a man who has become submissive, and on his neck a biting vampire's face.

[7] In 1895, Munch created a woodcut with a very similar theme and composition, known as Vampyr II.