Claude Monet
1904
Oil on canvas
Throughout Claude Monet’s series, the Houses of Parliament appear ‘as though constructed of different densities’ from painting to painting, in the words of one 1904 critic. Here, Monet expresses the grandeur of the building by setting its dark, dramatic silhouette against an ochre fog. For contemporary audiences, the Houses of Parliament would have been instantly recognisable as an iconic London subject and a symbol of one of the world’s most powerful imperial cities. This painting became the first work from the Thames series to enter a public collection when the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Germany purchased it in 1907.