A view of Westminster Bridge looking west towards Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey,

1808–11

Best remembered for lively watercolors painted directly from nature, Cox was a leading figure in a generation that also included John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, artists whose dedication to the landscape would define British painting for the first half of the nineteenth century. This atmospheric view of Westminster Bridge—painted at the height of Britain’s war with France, when quintessential views of the English countryside reflected national pride—is one of the finest watercolors from the artist’s early years to have survived. Here, Cox recorded daily working life along the river Thames against a sweeping panorama, with the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey rising in the background.