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Myles Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1825-1899) Lots 76-79, 82-84, 86-90, 93 Myles Birket Foster 'stands as one of England's most popular landscape draughtsmen and as a painter in water-colour of great distinction' the Dalziel Brothers recalled after the artist's death; while the Daily Graphic (26 December 1906) exclaimed 'Birket Foster produced something new - he was a tête d'école... never approached by any other of his followers or rivals'. Christopher Newall, in his Victorian Watercolours, London, 1987, p. 60, discusses Birket Foster's combination of 'progressive and traditional methods' and praises his 'vibrant colours unified and made tonally harmonious by the virtuosity of his stippled bodycolour technique. Birket Foster was born in North Shields on the Tyne but was brought up in London and was apprenticed to a wood engraver. He took up watercolour painting after his 1852-4 tour of the Rhineland and became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society in 1860. In 1863 he moved to Witley and it was from then on that his most typical watercolours were executed. The following watercolours are fine examples of Birket Foster's sentimental rustic scenes.

Myles Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1825-1899)

The Lion at St Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace, Venice

Details

Myles Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1825-1899)
The Lion at St Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace, Venice
signed with monogram (lower right)
pencil, pen and ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of bodycolour and with scratching out
5 3/8 x 8¼ in. (13.6 x 21 cm.)

Provenance

Possibly Charles Seeley, M.P.

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Lot Essay

The present watercolour was probably executed as part of a commission for Charles Seeley, M.P. for Lincoln and a wealthy corn-merchant. Seeley commissioned Birket Foster to paint fifty watercolours of Venice as a result of having seen an example of his work at Agnew's. The commission fee was £5000, making it the largest commission he ever received and one he was working on from 1817-1877 (see J. Reynolds, Birket Foster, Frome and London, 1984, pp. 136-7). According to Reynolds (op.cit., p. 200) the collection was dispersed soon after 1928 with only two watercolours remaining in the family.

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