How gift of Monet painting brightened demoralised Churchill’s postwar years

Generous present for former PM will feature in a landmark exhibition of the artist's London masterpieces

Finding yourself in opposition in the House of Commons can be uncomfortable for those who once led the nation, especially for someone also credited with a vital military victory. So it was for Winston Churchill. But in 1949 he was consoled with the extraordinary gift of a French impressionist masterpiece: Claude Monet's depiction of the Palace of Westminster, wreathed in heavy mists.

This generous present, now worth many millions, was accompanied by a note to Churchill wishing that the fog that shrouds Westminster", ruled then by Clement Attlee's Labour party, would soon lift.