Waterloo Bridge, London, Sun Effect

Monet's Waterloo Bridge, London, Sun Effect, painted in 1900 during one of his London working visits and held at the Beyeler-adjacent E.G. Bührle Collection in Zurich, belongs to his London series that also included the Houses of Parliament and Charing Cross Bridge. Waterloo Bridge, the Victorian iron bridge that Monet saw from his Savoy Hotel room, appears repeatedly in his London canvases as a mass of arches dissolving into river mist and morning light. The 'sun effect' subtitle indicates a specific meteorological moment — the sun burning through the characteristic London fog — and distinguishes this canvas from the misty and foggy versions in the series.

The sun breaking through London fog produces warmer, more saturated colours than in Monet's grey Thames canvases, with orange and gold tones dominating where violet and blue predominate in the fog studies. The bridge structure is more legible here, its arches catching the diffuse sunlight before it dissolves into haze.