Original Watercolour Blakesley Quay Suffolk Coastal Buildings and Sand Scene

Title: Original Watercolour Blakesley Quay Suffolk Coastal Buildings and Sand Scene
By Tony Herbert (1927-2024)
Medium: Watercolor on artists paper
Size: 13.75 x 9.75 inches
Condition: Good overall; minor corner wear and subtle warping to paper edge
Provenance: From a large private collection of this artists work, Oxford, England

Description: This 1998 plein air watercolour by Tony Herbert captures the quiet, unpolished charm of Blakesley Quay — a lesser-known location likely situated along the Suffolk coast. The composition features low-slung black huts and red-brick cottages nestled against open sky, with foreground elements including a yellow buoy, timber posts, and a fishing tarp suggesting the daily rhythms of a working quay.

Executed in Herbert’s signature light and expressive style, the piece makes striking use of negative space and dry-brush texture, particularly in the sandy foreground and pale sky. The figures are suggested rather than detailed, giving the scene a timeless, almost cinematic quality. Painted in May 1998, the work evokes a spring morning on the English coast — calm, spacious, and full of coastal utility.

While the exact location “Blakesley Quay” is not commonly referenced in art historical records, the painting’s style and subject matter place it firmly within Herbert’s East Anglian body of work. This piece would sit beautifully in a coastal, nautical, or British landscape collection and is especially suited to buyers interested in maritime themes, Suffolk scenery, or heritage coastal industry.