This German Romantic masterpiece was painted by Caspar David Friedrich. The painting is typical of Friedrich’s work in his feeling of loneliness which earned him the epithet, “the taciturn man from the North”. He began the work at the age of thirty-four years. The depressed and profound aspect of the artist’s personality manifests itself in this dramatic work. It is currently housed in the Nationalgalerie, Staalichte Museen zu Berlin.