(1752 - 1823) of Stoke on Tern and Adderley, Salop, o. s. of Thomas Davenant of Clearbrooke, Pembridge, Herefs; took name of Corbet on suc. to estates of maternal ancestors; m. 1772 Hester Salusbury; cr. Bt. 1786.
1790 Florence (summer)
1792 - 4 Rome (by Feb. 1792 - Apr. 1793), Venice (22 - 25 May 1793), Rome (1793 - 4)
During the three years Sir Corbet Corbet spent in Rome he was an active patron of British artists and an enthusiastic archaeologist. He is first mentioned in Italy with his wife at Florence in the summer of 1790,1 and by February 1792 they were living in Rome,2 in 'a style of considerable eminence ... Lady Corbet having a Conversation every Wednesday evening; which was frequented not only by all the British, but by many of the first Roman Nobility.'3 In 1792 John Deare sold a chimney piece (a 'Bas Relief of the Nine Muses in the Capitoline Museum') to Corbet for £;120,4 and Robert Fagan painted the Corbets with their pet dogs.5 In 1793 Charles Grignion painted Corbet seated under an oak tree, and Corbet commissioned from George Wallis a pair of large landscapes which were nearing completion in Naples in March 1793. In May 1793 the Corbets were in Venice,6 and that year Corbet also sponsored excavations near S.Sebastiano on the Via Appia in Rome (illustrated in Labruzzi's Via Appia Illustrata in 1794).7 'Sir Corbet had a good many labourers at work', wrote Sir William Forbes, 'who had discovered some Subterraneous Apartments, whence they had brought up a few fragments of Statues & other Sculptures, but nothing hitherto of any value'.3 In 1794 Corbet joined Prince Augustus and Robert Fagan in excavations at Campo Iemini.8
1. C. Taylor, Letters from Italy, [1842], 9. 2. Mrs Flaxman jnl.MSS 2 (23 Feb. 1792). 3. Forbes jnl.MSS (1 Apr. 1793). 4. Nollekens, 2:325. Forbes jnl.MSS (30 Apr. 1793). 5. Christie's, 27 Mar. 1981. 6. ASV IS 767. 7. Forbes jnl.MSS (1 Apr. 1793). M?langes de l'Ecole Fran?aise, 23[1903]:389. 8. I. Bignamini, Burl.Mag., 136[1994]:548 - 52.
