Myles Birket Foster

Myles Birket Foster ( born February 4, 1825 North Shields, Northumberland, † March 27, 1899 in Weybridge, Surrey ) was a popular English artist, illustrator and painter of the Victorian era.

Foster was the youngest of seven children of a Quaker family, who settled in 1830 in London. He received his first artistic training from the woodcutter Ebenezer Landells. In 1846 he started his own business as a book illustrator. His works from this period include a number of real-life scenes from the English country life. In the illustrations to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem " Evangeline " ( 1850) was followed to such works of William Wordsworth, Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Gray and other English and American poets. Here, Foster developed a preference for the landscape element and the lake.

In the 1850 Foster was awarded the contract for different views of the Rhine, which have appeared in two publications, The Rhine and its Pictorial Scenery (1856 ) and The Upper Rhine ( 1857) and helped him to establish himself as a painter. Many of his other landscapes he painted on trips to Scotland, Switzerland and Italy; Venice also created various cityscapes.

In the 1860s, to Foster turned more and more to the watercolor painting. In 1862 he became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society, where he exhibited 332 of his works. He was also represented in the years 1869-1881 with 13 of his oil paintings to exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Fosters representations of domestic and rural life, and especially the world of children were widespread. Thus adorned his pictures along with those of other artists from 1860 boxes of chocolate maker Cadbury.

Lake Como

Highland scenery