J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Hamburg and Copenhagen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hamburg: The Blockhaus, with the Spire of the Michaeliskirche beyond 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hamburg: The Blockhaus, with the Spire of the Michaeliskirche beyond’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Verso:
Hamburg: The Blockhaus, with the Spire of the Michaeliskirche beyond 1835
D30880
Turner Bequest CCCV 30 a
Pencil on white laid writing paper, 92 x 155 mm
Partial Watermark: portrait head of Frederick William III in a patterned oval with ‘fr. wi. diii’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts Blockhaus port (Blockhaus hafen) in the Neustadt district of Hamburg. The two-storey building at centre is the Baumhaus or ‘tree house’ built in the sixteenth century to function simultaneously as the port warden’s office, the customs house, an inn and concert hall.1 In the distance at right is the spire of St Michael’s Church (Michaeliskirche).
For more sketches of Hamburg see Tate D30842–D30860, D30862–D30870, D30872, D30874–D30880, D30882–D30886; Turner Bequest CCCV 11a–20a, 21a–25a, 26a, 27a–30a, 31a–33a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2015

1
see Adolph Fredrich Vollmer, Das ehemalige Blockhaus im Hamburger Hafen, 1839, etching on paper, 114 x 150 mm, British Museum, London (1851, 0503.105) http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=210486001&objectId=1451246&partId=1

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Hamburg: The Blockhaus, with the Spire of the Michaeliskirche beyond 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-hamburg-the-blockhaus-with-the-spire-of-the-michaeliskirche-r1187257, accessed 25 July 2025.