Flatford Mill Suffolk White Footbridge and Figures in Summer Landscape

Title: Flatford Mill Suffolk White Footbridge and Figures in Summer Landscape
By Tony Herbert (1927-2024)
Inscribed verso: “Flatford Mill Suffolk”
Medium: Watercolor on artists paper
Size: 10 x 14 inches
Condition: good; a clean and well-preserved work with no visible marks or damage
Provenance: From a large private collection of this artists work, Oxford, England

Description: A luminous and spontaneous plein-air painting by Tony Herbert, this original watercolour captures the iconic white footbridge at Flatford Mill, one of Suffolk’s most beloved heritage sites. Best known as the setting for John Constable’s The Hay Wain, Flatford remains a touchstone of English pastoral beauty. Here, Herbert brings his own mid-century sensibility to the scene, with vivid colour and loose, expressive brushwork.

In this painting, the wooden bridge cuts diagonally across the composition, leading the viewer’s eye through a dense canopy of green foliage, across reflective water, and toward the hint of a red-roofed building tucked among the trees. Small figures populate the scene — one in a bold red jacket crossing the bridge, another pair pausing in dappled shadow below. These moments of life give the piece warmth and movement.

Executed on lightly perforated artist’s sketchbook paper, this painting embodies Herbert’s distinctive combination of observational accuracy and painterly freedom. It likely formed part of a working series produced during his visits to Flatford and the surrounding Dedham Vale, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

This piece will resonate with collectors of British countryside art, East Anglian landscape painting, and works with literary or historic art connections. Its lively palette and informal brushwork make it well suited to contemporary rustic, cottagecore, or heritage-inspired interiors, especially in settings with links to Suffolk, Essex, or Constable Country.