DRESDEN -- The courtyard of a baroque Dresden Palace, where rows of flooded theatre seating figured in one of the world's top news photographs a week ago, will be dry and open to the public by Tuesday, an official said Saturday.

The courtyard of the Zwinger Palace was flooded by a nearby stream the day before the mighty Elbe River spilled over dykes August 15 and devastated downtown Dresden, the art-crammed city that was once the seat of the Saxon kings, DPA reported.

The ankle-deep water around the straight rows of metal chairs was shown in many newspaper stories about the inundation.

Reopening the baroque Zwinger and its various museums has become a symbol of Dresden's efforts to bounce back.

"We hope to have done the coarsest part of the cleanup by Tuesday," Said Art Museum spokesman Tilmann von Stockhausen.

Down-river, the flooding was still pressing hard on dykes Saturday, but part of the water was already emptying into the North Sea. The floods ravaged much of central Europe and caused 20 deaths in Germany alone.