À propos de l’œuvre
Le Parlement de Londres, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1900 -1901 · Chicago · W1600
The Parliament of London, Chicago W1600hand painted reproduction
The Palace of Westminster stands in a pale blue mist where the towers, the sky and the Thames share almost the same values. A few gray pinks and greens warm the atmosphere, while a small dark boat is enough to give scale. This version of Chicago is one of the clearest and quietest in the London series.
Look at the work
Parliament is formed by differences of light more than by contours
The Victoria Tower rises near the center left, accompanied on the right by the lower mass of the building. Monet describes neither the windows nor the neo-Gothic details: blue, green and purple verticals emerge from a milky sky. The edges remain open and change depending on the density of the key.
The Thames occupies almost the lower half. The reflections take on the same blue-gray as the architecture, but in the form of small horizontal bands. In the foreground, a red-brown boat and its wake introduce an oblique movement into this very stable construction.
The mist does not hide the monument: it allows Monet to reconstruct it like a succession of colorful temperatures.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
A silhouette obtained without a hard line
The towers appear by superpositions of blue, gray green and mauve. A continuous dark design would make the building too sharp and remove the impression of steam.
A sky and water deliberately close
The two areas share a clear range. Their difference comes mainly from the direction of the keys: more floating in the sky, more horizontal and fragmented in the Thames.
A small boat that regulates the entire scale
The boat in the foreground remains discreet but essential. Its red-brown value gives weight to the bottom of the canvas and measures the distance which separates the spectator from Parliament.
Details and visual documents
Observe the material and the exact version
The additional images show the difficult-to-read passages in the full view and, where it exists, the actual appearance of the work at the museum.
The Art Institute's CC0 view measures 3,000 × 2,620 px. Details of 1,600 × 1,500 px and 1,600 × 1,400 px are native cropping of the same file, without artificial enlargement. All three images have been converted to real WebPs.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
These facts concern this precise version and are verified from the notice of the institution which keeps it.
Chicago 1933.1164, Wildenstein 1600
The Art Institute dates this oil on canvas to 1900 -1901. It measures 81.2 × 92.8 cm, or 103.6 × 115 × 10.8 cm with its frame, and bears the Claude Monet signature in light red-brown paint at the bottom right.
The terrace of Saint Thomas's Hospital
During his London campaigns, Monet painted Parliament in the late afternoon and sunset from the opposite bank of the River Thames. This viewpoint raised the silhouette above the water while keeping river traffic in the foreground.
A heavily reworked linen canvas
The Chicago review describes a non-standard format pre-glued linen canvas, likely commissioned for the artist, with a two-layer off-white background. The blue-gray and green-gray were taken up densely, then punctuated with pale pink and bright blue finishing touches.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The exact version of Chicago, 1933.1164 and W1600
- The almost square ratio of 81.2 × 92.8 cm
- The silhouette of Parliament preserved clear and without uniform outline
- The red-brown boat maintained on its small scale in the Thames
Work sheet
| Title | The Parliament of London, Chicago W1600 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1900 - 1901 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 81.2 × 92.8 cm |
| Orientation | Almost square |
| Conservation | Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, United States |
| Inventory | 1933.1164 · Wildenstein 1600 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
Misty blue, gray green, pale pink and red brown make up a very bright palette. This almost square reproduction accompanies ivory, stone or smoky blue walls, light woods and soft lighting that lets the most delicate values breathe.
