A blockbuster new exhibition of works by the famed German painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is due to open on Friday at Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie.
The show in Berlin, titled "Caspar David Friedrich: Infinite Landscapes," opens just weeks after another major exhibition of Friedrich's paintings at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg closed after drawing sell-out crowds and a total of around 335,000 visitors over several months.
Friedrich is widely considered the most renowned master of German Romantic painting. The exhibitions are planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth in the Baltic Sea town of Greifswald.
Visiting hours at Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie have already been extended in anticipation of major interest in the show.
The exhibition in Berlin is scheduled to run until August 4.
A further exhibition of Friedrich's paintings organized by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen art institution in the eastern city of Dresden is expected to follow in the autumn.
The exhibition includes more than 60 paintingss and 50 drawings by Friedrich, drawn from collections across Germany and abroad. Among the works on display include famed works such as "The Monk by the Sea" (1808-10), "The Abbey in the Oakwood" (1809-10), "The Sea of Ice" (1823-24) and "Chalk Cliffs on Rügen" (ca 1818).
Ralph Gleis, director of the Alte Nationalgalerie, pointed out on Wednesday that Friedrich made his breakthrough as an artist while living in Berlin.
Gleis also noted that Friedrich fell into relative obscurity after his death, and that a 1906 exhibition of his work in Berlin helped revive his reputation.
The three museums in Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden worked together to prepare the thematically independent exhibitions.
Together, the museums hold the most important collection of Friedrich's paintings anywhere in the world.