Monet began his series "Houses of Parliament" while visiting London from 1899 to 1901 and continued to develop them in his studio in Giverny. The towers of Westminster Palace stand out as deep blue silhouettes against the red-violet sky, colored by the setting sun amidst the characteristic London smog. As in the work of his role models J. M. W. Turner and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, they appear before a dramatic, cloud-filled sky or dissolve into the fog.