The magpie

Myles Birket Foster made a handsome fortune from his popular watercolours, building a large house at Witley, Surrey, called The Hill, which was decorated by the Pre-Raphaelites and other artist friends. He began as an illustrator but turned to watercolour around 1859 and was soon elected to the Old Watercolour Society. His smaller works, painted in a fine stipple technique with abundant bodycolour, were admired for their sentimental view of rural life, cottages and countryside, and seem to have no direct bearing on the social and political situation of their day.