Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

Christie's Auctions

It’s the most famous German painting of the 19th century — arguably of any century. Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1817) depicts a solitary figure standing on a rocky promontory. He looks out over a vast, mist-shrouded mountain landscape, which seems to stretch into the distance ad infinitum. An icon of Romanticism, he is humanity’s humble representative before the awesome majesty of nature.

Year of painting: 1817