The New Houses of Parliament and the Thames (Sunset on the Thames near Westminster with the New Houses of Parliament)

Henry Dawson's 1875 view of the New Houses of Parliament and the Thames at sunset is a significant document of Victorian civic pride in one of the era's greatest architectural achievements. Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin's Gothic Revival Parliament buildings, completed in stages from the 1840s through the 1860s, had become the defining symbol of Victorian Britain by the time Dawson painted this view. The Thames at Westminster, with its backdrop of the new Gothic pinnacles, became one of the most painted subjects in Victorian art — a tradition that would culminate with Monet's celebrated Parliament series three decades later. The painting is now at Tyntesfield, a National Trust property.

Dawson renders the sunset over the Thames with romantic warmth, the new Gothic towers silhouetted against an orange sky reflected in the river. His atmospheric handling of the light effects — warm, suffused, and slightly dramatic — places him in the tradition of Turner's Thames paintings.