Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Corbould, Henry
CORBOULD, HENRY (1787–1844), painter, son of Richard Corbould [q. v.], a landscape and miniature painter, was born in London on 11 Aug. 1787. He entered at an early age the schools of the Royal Academy, where he gained a silver medal for a study from the life, and while there obtained the friendship of Flaxman, Westmacott, Chantrey, and West, to whom he sat as a model in the pictures representing ‘Christ rejected’ and ‘Christ healing the Sick in the Temple.’ Corbould's first picture, ‘A Study,’ was hung in the Academy in 1807, when he resided at 70 John Street, Fitzroy Square. In 1808 he exhibited ‘Coriolanus.’ For a considerable time he was principally engaged in designing for book illustrations, such as ‘The Nightingale, a Collection of Songs set to Music,’ ‘Elegant Epistles from the most Eminent Writers,’ ‘The Beauties of Shakespeare,’ ‘The Works of Virgil, translated into English by John Dryden,’ ‘The Poetical Works of James Beattie, LL.D., and William Collins,’ ‘Logic, or the Right Use of Reason, by Isaac Watts, D.D.,’ &c. He was, however, employed for about thirty years by the trustees of the British Museum in making highly finished drawings from the Elgin and other marbles in that institution, which were afterwards published, and are now preserved in the department of prints and drawings. Corbould made drawings from the Duke of Bedford and Lord Egremont's collections; the Dilettanti Society, and the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was a distinguished member. Several of his pictures were engraved by John Bromley, Hopwood, and Robert Cooper. He designed in 1838 the diploma of ‘The Manchester Unity of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,’ engraved by J. A. Wright. He also made the drawings for an edition of Camden's ‘History of England,’ most of which were engraved by W. Hawkins. Corbould was seized with apoplexy while riding from St. Leonard's to Hurst Green, Sussex, and expired at Robertsbridge, in about ten hours after the attack, on 9 Dec. 1844, and was buried in Etchingham Church, Sussex. He left four sons.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School; manuscript notes in the British Museum.]