Corbié (active c. 1824–1886) was a highly prolific 19th-century
French master copperplate engraver and scientific illustrator based in Paris.
His studio changed addresses over the decades, moving from the Rue Serpente in 1839
to the Rue de la Harpe by 1862.
Print records reveal that Madame Corbié worked closely alongside him
in the studio as a professional coloriste (colorist),
hand-painting the printed black-and-white plates with watercolors
to match the natural hues of the insect or bird specimens.
Because his career spans over 60 years (1824–1886),
historians suspect the workshop may have eventually transitioned from father to son under the same professional name
Because 19th-century trade logs treated reproductive engravers as
commercial technical artisans rather than academic scholars,
his full first name and precise birth/death dates are omitted
from official scientific biographies.
He is almost universally cited in old academic catalogs as "M. Corbié"
(Monsieur Corbié) or simply "Corbié".
Despite the lack of personal records, his high technical standing
is proven by the landmark texts he was trusted to engrave.
Corbié was a major plate-cutter for several of the foundational volumes of the
Suites à Buffon atlases, and other natural history series, including
Histoire Naturelle des Insectes: Aptères (1837-1857)
(spiders and wingless insects) by Baron Walckenaer,
Histoire Naturelle des Crustacés (1834-1840) by Henri Milne-Edwards.
Voyage au Gabon: Histoire Naturelle des Insectes et des Arachnides (1856–1857)
by James Thomson: for which Corbié worked alongside Clergé
to engrave the complex exotic beetle and lepidoptera plates.
Histoire Naturelle des Zoophytes: Acalèphes (1843) by René-Primevère Lesson:
this extended Corbié's range beyond insects to other complex anatomical subjects:
engraving the microscopic details of the jellyfish and radiarians.
Les pigeons de volière et de colombier (1824),
Corbié co-authored and illustrated this
alongside naturalist Pierre Boitard. This book featured highly praised detailed engravings
of domestic pigeon breeds and was so accurate that it was later acquired
and used as a source text by Charles Darwin while researching his
'Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication'.
Copies of illustration in this website engraved by Corbié for
Guenée:-
(written 27 October 2026)
