Edith Corbet
1846–1920 · Victorian landscape painter associated with the Macchiaioli
Edith Corbet, born Edenborough in Goulburn, New South Wales, in 1846 and dying in Hampstead, north London, in 1920, was a Victorian landscape painter closely associated with the Tuscan Macchiaioli. The group painted outdoors to capture natural light and favoured panoramic formats, breaking with tradition.
After marrying the painter and illustrator Arthur Murch, she settled in Rome, where she painted with Giovanni Costa, the group's leader, and in 1876 worked with him in Venice. Widowed in 1891, she married Matthew Ridley Corbet, whom some sources count among the group's leading members. She then lived mainly in London, though she travelled to Italy.
From 1880 to 1890 she frequently exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery, and later mainly at the Royal Academy. In 1893 her work appeared at the Palace of Fine Arts during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her legacy lies in combining British tradition with the Italian lesson of open-air painting.