MYLES BIRKET FOSTER (1825-1899)

Birket Foster was the most celebrated Victorian watercolour painter of rustic scenes. He painted in a stippled technique with great technical skill. His work is not Pre-Raphaelite, but he was a friend of Burne-Jones and Morris, who decorated his new house in Witley, Surrey, in the mid 1860’s.

Foster was born in North Shields, came to London as a child and at the age of sixteen was apprenticed to Ebenezar Landells, a leading wood engraver. He worked first as an engraver for Landells, which gave him a habit of precision and a sound understanding of the mediums potential. Then he worked as a draughtsman under Henry Vizetelly, where he began to illustrate books. In 1846, he set up as an independent illustrator, because he was already becoming famous as a draughtsman of rural scenes. His most celebrated illustrated book, Pictures of English Landscapes (1863), with verses by Tom Taylor, he conceived as a showcase. It contains thirty full-page wood engravings, cut by the Dalziel Brothers. However, Foster was already gaining a far higher reputation as a watercolourist. He began to exhibit in 1859, and was elected Associate of the Old Watercolour Society in 1860 and full Member in 1862. In the course of his exhibiting career, he showed some four hundred works at the Old Watercolour Society’s galleries. His watercolours were also extensively exhibited by London dealers, particularly Agnew’s and Dowdeswell's. In fact, his work was so popular with the public that dealers virtually fought to purchase it and used to race each other from Witley Station to his home when he had work to sell. A comprehensive recent study of the artist is by Jan Reynolds (Batsford 1984).