Berlin’s Old National Gallery, known in German as the Alte Nationalgalerie, is the city’s art gallery where visitors will enjoy Neoclassical, Romantic, Impressionist and early Modernist paintings.

It is found in the center of the city’s ‘Museum Island’ that is in fact an island that houses five of the city’s biggest and internationally recognized museums. The Old National Gallery was the building of the original National Gallery. Its works of art are however now held in several additional buildings, including the New National Gallery and others.

The Old National Gallery was inaugurated in 1861 thanks to a generous donation, by the German banker and art collector Johann Heinrich Wagener, of over two hundred paintings of German and foreign artists.

The original collection was held and put on display in the buildings of the Akademie der Kunste and the current building was designed and construction completed in 1876. It has the appearance of a Roman temple with an appended apse. The building suffered great damage due to allied air raids during the Second World War, and though it was occasionally re-opened, reconstruction continued until 1969 and following a more recent renovation, completed in 2001, the top floor of the museum now holds a section dedicated to Romantic art.

The building of the Old National Gallery was designed by Friedrich August Stuler in a style that resembles early Neorenaissance and Classicism with the intention of creating unity of art, nation and history, thus explaining the temple and church-like appearance.

While visiting Berlin, the Old National Gallery is advised by travelers of all kinds, considering its artistic value and also the historical importance of being the first gallery that represented German art to the world.