This view is of the shingle beach and sea at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, most likely painted near Crag House, the former home of the composer, Benjamin Britten and the opera singer, Peter Pears. Mary Potter had moved to Aldeburgh in 1951 and struck up a friendship with Britten and the two would spend time together. In January 1953, there were serious floods along the east coast which breached the inadequate sea defences claiming 50 lives in Suffolk. Aldeburgh, pinned between the River Orde and the North Sea, was badly hit and the ground floor of Britten’s house was flooded. So it is quite likely that Winter Sea, with its turbulent waves, bears the memory of those floods. In 1957, Britten complained to Potter that walkers along the beach distracted his concentration. So they swapped houses – he moving into her house, the Red House, a five-minute drive inland, which was more secluded and is now the Britten-Pears Foundation, and she into Crag House.