late July 1886
A trip to Italy and the Carrara quarries
At the end of July he leaves Paris for Italy, where he also visits the quarries of Carrara.
March 1887
Meets Arnold Böcklin
He returns to Berlin, where he meets the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin and grows spiritually close to him; from September he lives in Leipzig.
1889
Invited to exhibit with Les XX
The members of Les XX (The Twenty) invite Klinger to exhibit his work in their annual winter exhibition in Brussels.
1889
A journey through Belgium and Italy
He travels through Belgium and Italy, visiting Naples, Paestum and Pompeii.
1889–1893
Years in Rome
He settles in Rome and studies the Italian masters: 15th-century artists and works from antiquity are a revelation to him, and he intensifies his studies of anatomy, the nude and the representation of mass and volume — a very productive time. Other accounts say he arrived in Rome already in 1888.
1890s
A Leipzig studio grown into an exhibition building
He extends his Leipzig studio to the size of a showcase building so that he can exhibit his own works as well as works by Arnold Böcklin and drawings by Rodin and Menzel; at the same time he designs sketches for murals in the vestibule of the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig.