Edith Corbet was a landscape painter, closely associated with the 'Etruscan' group. In 1891 she cemented the association by marrying Matthew Ridley Corbett, one of the group's most important artists. She was born Edith Edinborough. . . [and] was exhibiting in London by 1871. She then married the painter Arthur Murch and lived in Rome where she worked with Giovanni Costa, the leader of the Etruscans. In 1876 they both stayed in Venice. According to Olivia Rossetti 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' (1904). Between 1880 and 1890 Edith Murch exhibited many works at the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery. After her marriage to Corbet she exhibited primarily at the Royal Academy, visiting Italy but living in London for the rest of her life.
Edith Corbet's works share the Etruscan preoccupation with harmonious and subdued opaque colour. She too painted panoramic landscapes on elongated horizontal canvases. — Hilary Morgan
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 herEtruscan 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