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Oil on canvas, 43.5cm x 71.5cm
The iron paddle steamer Sylph is shown in starboard profile on a calm summer's evening - the water is still and the pennants hang limp. She is departing from Rock Ferry on the Wirral side of the Mersey, bound for Liverpool. Most of the passengers are under the awning on the stern deck but a few are standing admiring the view from the fore deck. There are two small rowing boats in the left foreground and the hulk of a quarantine vessel (possibly HMS Akbar) can be seen in the distance.
The pier and part of the small village of Rock Ferry is shown on the left hand side of the canvas. A ferry had operated from the shore there since the seventeenth century. A slipway was built in 1820 and steamer services began in the 1830s. Sylph was built in Liverpool for the Royal Rock Ferry Steam Packet Company in 1845 and remained in service until 1854.