Myles Birket Foster: The Old Curiosity Shop

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899) was a British illustrator, watercolourist and engraver. He started his artistic career as an apprentice to the wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells where he worked on illustrations for Punch magazine, and the Illustrated London News. He also found work as a book illustrator.

In the 1850s he trained himself to paint in watercolours and quickly became a successful artist in that medium, later becoming an Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society, and exhibited over 400 of his works at the Royal Academy over more than two decades. Foster travelled widely around the country, also visiting the Rhine Valley, Swiss Lakes and Italy.

It was after he moved to Witley in Surrey in 1863 that he produced the works for which he is best known - a sentimentalised view of the contemporary English countryside, particularly in the west Surrey area. Although criticised for their idealised view of rural life, they were recognised for their detail and execution.

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HC-1175: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)