tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">6.  Birthplace of Burns, near Ayr

" 7.  Sunset with Cattle Bethnal Green Museum 8.  In Full Cry Barnet Lewis, Esq. 9.  Children by the Sea Jesse Haworth, Esq. 10. By the Thames Barnet Lewis, Esq. 11. A Surrey Cottage " 12. The Donkey that would not go Sharpley Bainbridge, Esq. 13. Passing the Flock Barnet Lewis, Esq. 14. Near Godalming " 15. The Blackberry Gatherers " 16. The Happy Time of Life "

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BIRKET FOSTER

The dainty water-colour paintings executed by Birket Foster probably appeal to the majority of the British public more than the work of any other artist.

For many years during the early part of his career he was engaged in drawing on wood-blocks for the engraver, from which he acquired a minuteness in detail that continued to pervade his paintings in later life. The result was that he produced scenes from Nature with an exactness that the most uninitiated in art are able to understand and appreciate. The chief features, however, in Birket Foster's paintings are the poetic feeling with which he indued them, and the care and felicity with which his compositions were selected. These qualities lend a great charm to his drawings, and especially to those representing the homely scenes, so frequently selected from that picturesque part of Surrey, where he lived for many years. He revelled in sunny landscapes, with sheep roaming in the distance and with rustic children playing in the foreground; he was also attracted by peaceful red-brick cottages covered with thatch, and enlivened by domestic scenes. It is perhaps by these rural paintings that the artist is best known. He, however, wandered far afield in search of the picturesque; he was an indefatigable painter,