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Myles Birket Foster [1825-1899]- 'St. Andrews stormy seas breaking against the cliffs:- monogrammed and inscribed St. Andrews bottom left watercolour heightened with white 58 x 83.5cm. *Provenance. Frost & Reed Ltd. *Biography. Myles Birket Foster was a successful and extremely popular 19th century watercolourist, illustrator and engraver. Born in North Shields, his family moved to London in 1830. His father recognised his son's artistic talent and apprenticed him to the wood engraver Ebenezer Landells where he worked on illustrations for Punch and the Illustrated London News. Birket Foster became a book illustrator and taught himself to paint in watercolour. He became an instant success, elected a member of the Old Watercolour Society in 1860 and went on to exhibit some 400 works at the Royal Academy over two decades. He travelled widely at this time, painting in Scotland, the Rhine Valley, the Swiss Lakes and Italy, especially Venice. It was after moving to Witley in Surrey that he started to produce the work for which he is best known; sentimentalised views of the contemporary English countryside, particularly around Surrey. Although criticised by some for their idealised view of country life, this body of work proved very popular, and realised three figure sums in their time! His house in Witley was partly decorated by the Pre-Raphaelites and became a centre for many artists of the day. He lived here until 1893 when he moved to Weybridge. Largely because of his contemporary success his work was much faked within his life time; genuine works are fairly easy to recognise, his finished watercolours having a stipple technique, especially on flesh, and his drawings are minutely accurate. He generally worked on a small scale, but is one of very few watercolourists to make a complete success of large compositions.