Houses of Parliament, sunset

Houses of Parliament, sunset from 1904 at the Kunsthaus Zürich offers a slightly different angle on the Parliament building than the National Gallery of Art versions, demonstrating how Monet treated subtle shifts in viewpoint and lighting as distinct pictorial problems within the series. The Kunsthaus acquired this canvas as part of its sustained collection of French Impressionism. By 1904 Monet was exhibiting the London series as a unified whole — showing over sixty canvases together at Durand-Ruel's gallery — and individual works gained meaning from their place within this architectural ensemble of images.

The Parliament's silhouette against the sunset sky is barely suggested — dark violet-blue strokes in the upper register dissolve into the burning orange-pink of the dying light. Monet uses the Thames surface to extend the sky's color palette downward, reflections in warm and cool tones creating a chromatic echo.