Item #AT-0195- "Fishing for Boat" by Myles Birket (Birkett) Foster (1825

Myles Birket Foster (4 February 1825 – 27 March 1899) was a popular English illustrator, watercolour artist and engraver in the Victorian period. His name is also to be found as Myles Birkett Foster. Although he had painted great numbers of landscape scenes from Scotland to the Mediterranean, it was after moving to Witley that Birket Foster produced the works for which he is best known - a sentimentalized view of the contemporary English countryside, particularly in the west Surrey area. Although criticized for their idealized view of rural life, they were recognized for their detail and execution. Birket Foster's work (along with that of other artists) was used by Cadburys, the chocolate manufacturer, on the cover of their chocolate boxes from the 1860s onwards.