The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835): Art, History and Details

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775–1851).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Fire consumed London’s famous Houses of Parliament on the night of October 16, 1834, and people gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to land and hampered steamers towing firefighting equipment along the river. The blaze burned uncontrollably for hours. J. M. W. Turner records the struggle as the boats in the lower-right corner head toward the flames. Although Turner based the painting on an actual event, he magnified the height of the flames, using the disaster as the starting point to express man’s helplessness when confronted with the destructive powers of nature. Brilliant swathes of color and variable atmospheric effects border on abstraction.

Object facts

• Title: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834
• Date: 1835
• Creator attribution: Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775–1851)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 123.5 x 153.5 x 12 cm (48 5/8 x 60 7/16 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 92 x 123.2 cm (36 1/4 x 48 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.647

A detail from the museum

Turner painted two versions of this event. Cleveland's painting views the fire downriver, from the southeast bank of the Thames, while the second version at the Philadelphia Museum of Art views the fire from directly across Westminster Bridge.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Morse, John D. Old Master Paintings in North America: Over 3000 Masterpieces by 50 Great Artists. New York, NY: Abbeville Press, 1979.
• Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Works of Art and Artists in England. London, United Kingdom: J. Murray, 1838.
• Royal Academy of Arts. Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters. London, United Kingdom: Printed by Wm. Clowes and Sons, 1870.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.