MUSEUM ISLAND, Alte National Galerie

The Alte Nationalgalerie is one of the most important collections of nineteenth-century German paintings and sculptures.

Built in the style of a Greek temple, the Museum was designed by the German architect Friedrich August Stüler, based on a sketch by the Emperor Frederick William IV of Prussia. It was inaugurated in his presence in 1876, after 13 years of construction.

It was severely damaged during the Second World War, and was restored at the end of the 20th century.

At the entrance, you can see the words “Der Deutschen Kunst”, meaning “to German art”, followed by the date when the facade was completed, 1871, in Roman numerals. The Museum was conceived as a temple to German art, although the collection you see today, comprising 1800 paintings and 1500 statues, is not exclusively German and also contains a significant number of works by French painters, such as Manet, Monet, and Cézanne....