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Property from the Estate of the Late Ian Fry (Lots 122, 126, 137, 148-151, 154, 161-166)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, on 26 December 1906, noted ‘Birket Foster produced something new - he was a tête d’école…never approached by any of his followers or rivals’.Birket Foster was born in North Shields, Northumberland into a wealthy Quaker family, but was educated in London and he was apprenticed to the wood engraver Ebenezer Landells, producing sketches for, amongst other publications, the Illustrated London News. He travelled around England with his friend, the engraver Edmund Evans and produced for the Illustrated London News the publication The Watering Places of England and subsequently The Boys’ Country Year Book, 1847, establishing a lifelong love of the countryside and its pursuits. Yet it was the popularity of his illustrations to poetry that marked him out for success and brought his art to a wider audience; Birket Foster illustrated editions of the works of Longfellow, Scott and Milton amongst others. He was to become the most sought after poetry illustrator of his day. Yet he desired to paint, an aim which he was encouraged by his first wife, a cousin, Anne Spence. He was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1860 and a full member in 1862. The recognition of his success was both great and instant, he wrote to his brother-in-law, ‘commissions for pictures pour in and it is far more delightful working in colour’ (Spence family letters, 19 February 1860).1860 also saw the publication of Birket Foster’s Pictures of English Landscapes, engraved by the Dalziel Brothers. Ruskin described the plates as 'peculiarly good of their class-rich, gracefully composed, exquisite book illustrations’. It depicted typical country scenes, many sketched in the villages and lanes of Surrey, where in 1863 Birket Foster built a large house, The Hill at Whitley, near Godalming (which was one of the first houses to be extensively decorated by Morris, Marshall, Faulkener & Co.). However in Birket Foster’s delicate and detailed pictures of landscape distilled into a charming, idealised, rustic tableaux, his aim was not just decorative, but to capture a traditional way of life that was being disrupted by the consequences of an agricultural depression and the encroachment of industry. In Lot 163 a plume of smoke from a steam train can just be seen on the horizon indicating the advance of industry. writes of Birket Foster’s watercolour, Lane Scene at Hambleden (Tate Gallery) ‘[an example] which provided town and country dwellers with an enduring image of the rural landscape of a mythical past.’Birket Foster was a great collector and a devotee of the Aesthetic sentiment that was pervasive at that time. When he sold The Hill in 1893 almost his entire collection of pictures was sold in these Rooms on 26 April 1894, including seven panels by Burne-Jones on the theme of George and the Dragon and 115 pieces described as ‘a valuable collection of Old Nankin Porcelain, Grès de Flandres, Majolica and Enamels’. His studio sale was held in these Rooms on 27 June 1899 and a further sale of porcelain on 1 December 1921. Christopher Newall discusses Birket Foster’s combination of ‘progressive and traditional methods’ (Newall, Victorian Watercolours, London, 1987, p. 60) and in the present collection of quintessential examples, we see why his work was so highly prized: the vibrant colours deployed with his characteristic technique of stippled bodycolour creates a harmonious effect overall, and this, combined with rolling landscapes peopled with endearing children, produces an engaging prospect. The present group of watercolours by Myles Birket Foster is the most important to appear on the market in a generation.For a biography of Ian Fry, see lot 126.
Myles Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1825-1899)
Harvest Time
Details
Myles Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1825-1899)
Harvest Time
signed with monogram (lower left)
pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour on paper
23 x 34 7/8 in. (58.4 x 88.7 cm.)
Harvest Time
signed with monogram (lower left)
pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour on paper
23 x 34 7/8 in. (58.4 x 88.7 cm.)
Provenance
The Property of P. J. Dearden; Sotheby's, London, 27 March 1973, lot 30.
with Richard Green, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 4 June 2009, lot 17, where purchased by Ian Fry, and by descent.
with Richard Green, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 4 June 2009, lot 17, where purchased by Ian Fry, and by descent.
Brought to you by
Clare Keiller