Myles Birket Foster, RWS

British (1825-1899)

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Myles Birket Foster

The Fallen Tree

Signed Watercolour
7½ x 10½ inches

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Myles Birket Foster was born in North Shields in 1825 and began his career as an engraver, illustrating books and magazines such as Punch and the Illustrated London News.

He began exhibiting his watercolours in 1859, and soon found and soon found recognition being elected Member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1862. He was subsequently to exhibit some 400 exhibit some 400 watercolours at the Society's exhibitions.

Myles Birket Foster

Lilac Time

Signed with monogram
Watercolour
9 x 14 inches

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He is perhaps best known for his scenes of rural life and the rural life and the English countryside, although his output demonstrates an extremely broad repertoire. Travels on the Continent in the 1850's and 1860's produced a large volume of scenes from European Cities, the Rhine and the Swiss Lakes, as well as a great variety of Lakes, as well as a great variety of Venetian subjects from simple studies of daily life to extensive views on the Grand Canal.

Myles Birket Foster

Lake Como

Signed with monogram
Watercolour
4½ x 7 inches

SOLD

Birket Foster was undoubtedly one of the finest watercolourists of the Victorian era which won him many admirers as well as imitators. His life and works have been well documented over the documented over the years in many books and publications. His life story was recorded in a book by H M Cundall published by A & C Black Ltd in 1906.

In 1984 he was the subject of another biography, Birket Foster, by Jan Reynolds and published by Batsford.