The Houses of Parliament, Sunset
1903
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 81.3 x 92.5 cm (32 x 36 7/16 in.) framed: 107 x 117.5 x 8.8 cm (42 1/8 x 46 1/4 x 3 7/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CF
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Chester Dale Collection
Accession Number
1963.10.48
Art Historical Context
Claude Monet’s *The Houses of Parliament, Sunset* (1903) captures the Gothic silhouette of London’s iconic riverside buildings bathed in the warm, dissolving light of dusk. Painted from a vantage point across the Thames, the work belongs to the artist’s celebrated London series, created during several visits between 1899 and 1901 and completed in his studio at Giverny. Rather than merely recording architecture, Monet used the subject to explore the transient effects of atmosphere and color. As a leading figure of Impressionism, Monet worked in oil on canvas to layer delicate veils of pigment ...
About the Artist
Claude Monet · 1840–1926
Claude Monet, born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in Paris and raised in Le Havre, Normandy, began his artistic journey as a successful teenage caricaturist. His formal training started at the Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851, where he received his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. Around 1858, he met Eugène Boudin, who became his pivotal mentor, introducin...