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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Rhine at Hirzenach, with a Steamer 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Rhine at Hirzenach, with a Steamer’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 46 Verso:
The River Rhine at Hirzenach, with a Steamer 1840
D30547
Turner Bequest CCCIII 45a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the Rhine at Hirzenach, on the west bank, looking north-west down the river. The steamer seen here from the port broadside, flying a flag from the stern and gently smoking, may be the same vessel seen in the distance on folio 47 verso (D30549; Turner Bequest CCCIII 46a).
Powell has noted that Turner neared the end of this tour following ‘the familiar route of the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne. He almost certainly travelled by steamer, ... sketching most of the well-known sights perfunctorily as he passed.’2 Given that this sketchbook was used in reverse of its subsequent foliation, she has specified the overall range of this phase as ‘TB CCCIII 68v–20v; 11r’,3 indicating folios 12 recto and 21 verso–69 verso (D30479, D30497–D30592; Turner Bequest CCCIII 20a–68a); see this book’s Introduction for the full itinerary of this part of the journey.
For other Hirzenach views, see the 1817 Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12817–D12819; Turner Bequest CLX 60–61; D12961–D12966, D12969–D12970; CLXI 42a–45, 46a, 47). There is an 1817 watercolour of Hirzenach below St Goar (British Museum, London).4

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
4
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.378–9 no.681, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The River Rhine at Hirzenach, with a Steamer 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-river-rhine-at-hirzenach-with-a-steamer-r1196304, accessed 01 April 2026.