Description Property of a Savannah, GA Collector Myles Birket Foster (English, 1825-1899), The Patient Donkey, Watercolor on Paper, monogrammed lower right, depicting mother and children with a donkey outside of a house, matted and framed. Frame size: 12 3/4 in. x 15 1/8 in. Myles Birket Foster (4 February 1825 - 27 March 1899) was a popular English illustrator, watercolor artist and engraver in the Victorian period. Birket Foster was highly regarded, especially for his scenes of rural life. Throughout his career, he had studied and sketched the natural world, however, like many of his contemporaries, such as Helen Allingham, he became increasingly keen to capture what he felt was a vanishing way of life. Due to rapid industrialization and the growth of the railway, which encouraged increasing numbers of people to live in the countryside and commute into the cities for their jobs, the countryside was undergoing enormous change. Birket Foster became an Associate of the Old Watercolor Society (Later the Royal Watercolor Society) in 1860 and exhibited some 400 of his paintings at the Royal Academy over more than two decades. (AskArt.com)