The Lobby of the House of Commons, 1886

Prosperi crowds the Gothic lobby of Westminster with a generation of parliamentary giants at the exact moment the Liberal Party tore itself apart over Irish Home Rule. The five foreground figures name the fault lines: Joseph Chamberlain and the Marquess of Hartington (Liberal Unionists about to bolt) flank Charles Stewart Parnell (the Irish Nationalist whose demand drove the crisis) and Lord Randolph Churchill (playing his Orange card), all converging on a tight-lipped, arms-folded W. E. Gladstone, whose Third Home Rule Bill had just split his government. Prosperi exaggerates Parnell's dark brow and rigid jaw in the physiognomic shorthand the period applied to Irish Catholic politicians — a pointed, if routine, Victorian editorial choice. A policeman and bewigged clerk anchor the left; the clock above the arch reads midnight.