1720 in art

Events

• May 2 – James Thornhill, Serjeant Painter to King George I of Great Britain, is knighted, the first native English artist to be so honoured.
• John Michael Rysbrack settles in London.
• Portraitist Rosalba Carriera moves temporarily from Venice to Paris.
• The interior decoration of Santo Sepolcro (Pisa) is restored.

Works

• William Aikman – Portrait of the Duke of Argyll
• Rosalba Carriera – Maria Josepha of Austria
• Peter Scheemakers – Bust of John Dryden
• Antoine Watteau
• *The Judgement of Paris
• *''The shop sign of Gersaint''

Births

• January 19 – John Boydell, engraver
• January 20 – Bernardo Bellotto, Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching
• August 15 – Charles Norbert Roettiers, French engraver and medallist
• October 4 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist
• November 30 – André Soares, Portuguese sculptor and architect
• date unknown
• *Pierre-Edmé Babel, French engraver
• *John Giles Eccardt, German-born English portrait painter
• *Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen, French painter and draftsman
• *Edme Dumont, French sculptor
• *Pietro Gaspari, Italian artist, known for veduta and capriccio in etchings and paintings
• *Carlo Magini, Italian painter of the Baroque period
• *Johannes Rach, Danish painter and draughtsman
• *Giuseppe Sanmartino, Italian sculptor during the Rococo period
• *Isak Wacklin, Finnish painter
• * Georg Caspar von Prenner, Austrian artist, son of Anton Joseph von Prenner, Austrian artist
• date probably
• *Anton Giuseppe Barbazza, Italian painter and engraver of the Baroque period
• *Jonas Haas, German-born Danish engraver

Deaths

• March 6 – Pieter van Bloemen, Flemish painter
• June 3 – Cristoforo Munari, Italian painter specializing in still life
• October 10 – Antoine Coysevox, French sculptor emigrated from Spain
• November 19 - Hendrick van Streeck, Dutch Golden Age painter of church interiors and a sculptor
• date unknown
• *Giovanni Agostino Cassana, Italian painter of animals and subject pictures
• *Orazio Marinali, Italian sculptor, active mainly in Veneto
• *Tao Chi, Chinese landscape painter
• *Adriaen van Salm, Dutch draftsman and painter
• probable
• *Alberto Carlieri, Italian painter of the late-Baroque period