Edith Edenborough, the second daughter, and fifth child, of Henry and Margaret (née Stedman) Edenborough, was born 28 December 1846 at Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia. The Edenborough family originated in Leicestershire, later moved to London, England, and were successful merchants in hosiery and silk.
Between 1833 and 1837, Henry Edenborough, a sea captain, made several voyages to Australia before settling there in 1840 when he took possession of a pastoral station just south of Goulburn known as Wollogorang. The family lived at Wollogorang until 1854 at which time Henry and Margaret sold up and returned to England with their six children. The 1861 British census shows Edith, aged 14, living with her widowed mother at Kensington, Middlesex — Henry having died one year after his return to England — and the 1871 census records her living with her sister Annie, who is now listed as head of household, at 5 Sheffield Gardens, Kensington, Middlesex. Her death was registered at Hampstead in 1920. — Jennie Fairs
Walter Crane recalls meeting her in Rome in 1871 when he was on his honeymoon. She afterwards became the wife of English painter Arthur Murch who was then living in Rome. After his death she married Matthew Ridley Corbett in 1891. Edith worked with Giovanni Costa from the mid1870s onwards, both in Rome and later when both were staying in Venice in 1876.According to Olivia Agresti, "Costa had a very high opinion of this artist's gifts and used to remember with pleasure how, on that occasion, they used to go out together to paint from nature at Fusino"(228). She is best known for her Etruscan School landscapes but was also influenced by the Aesthetic Movement as shown by her portraits of Beatrice Stuart-Wortley and Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot, Countess of Brownlow, and paintings like The Sleeping Girl of 1882 or Bacchante of 1896. — Dennis T. Lanigan
Bibliography
Agresti, Olivia Rossetti. Giovanni Costa, his Life, Work and Times. London: Grant Richards, 1904.
Fairs, Jennie. [Biographical information] Private communication via e-mail, 10 July 2006.
Morgan, Hilary and Nahum, Peter. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989.
Last modified 20 December 2022