- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
- Medium
- Watercolour and gouache on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 302 × 444 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
- Reference
- D36235
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 373
Display caption
Turner was an eyewitness of the fire which destroyed the Houses of Commons and Lords on 16–17 October 1834. A large crowd, held back by soldiers, watches firemen fighting the blaze. Turner exhibited two oil paintings of the fire in 1835, but seen from the other side of the Thames. A watercolour vignette was engraved for the Keepsake annual journal in 1836. Turner made these records in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act of Parliament. They perhaps underlined the sweeping away of the old order.
Gallery label, November 2022
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