1740 in art

Events from the year 1740 in art.

Events

October 13 – Jacques Saly arrives in Rome to study at the French Academy there.
Susanna Drury exhibits gouache paintings of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.

Works

Chardin 016.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Chardin, The Morning Toilette]

Canaletto
* The [Grand Canal with San Simeone Piccolo]
* A Regatta on the Grand Canal
* Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day
* Venice: The Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo
* Venice: Santa Maria della Salute
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin – The Morning Toilette
Matthäus Günther – Fresco in church of SS. Peter and Paul, Mittenwald, Bavaria
William Hogarth – Portrait of Captain Thomas Coram
James Latham –
Michele Marieschi – The Grand Canal at the Palazzo Foscari
Philippe Mercier – Portrait of John Hall-Stevenson
Peter Scheemakers – Monument to William Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey
Samuel Scott – The Capture of Puerto Bello
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – ''Alexander the Great and Campaspe in the Studio of Apelles''

Births

February 16 – Giambattista Bodoni, Italian typographer, type-designer, compositor, printer and publisher
March 2 – Nicholas Pocock, English marine painter
May 28 – Fedot Shubin, Russian sculptor
September 7 – Johan Tobias Sergel, Swedish sculptor
September 17 – John Hamilton Mortimer, British Neoclassical painter known primarily for his romantic paintings and Italian landscapes
October 31 – Philip James de Loutherbourg, English miniaturist
November 24 – John Bacon, British sculptor date unknown
* Innocente Alessandri, Italian engraver, born in Venice
* Margaret Bingham, British painter and writer
* William Beilby, British glassworker and enameller
* Claude André Deseine, French sculptor
* Edmund Garvey, Irish painter
* Charles-Étienne Gaucher, French engraver
* Nathaniel Grogan Irish painter from Cork
* William Marlow, English marine painter
* Nikola Nešković, Serbian religious painter of icons, frescoes, and portraits
* Mariano Ramon Sanchez, Spanish painter primarily of portrait miniatures probable
* John Smart, English painter of portrait miniatures
* Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Irish portrait artist
* Vincenzio Vangelisti, Italian engraver
* Antoine Vestier, French miniaturist and painter of portraits

Deaths

January 30 – Amalia Königsmarck, Swedish painter
February 23 – Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, Italian sculptor and medallist
April 21 – Antonio Balestra, Italian Rococo painter
May 18 – Giuseppe Palmieri, Italian painter
June – Jan Frans van Bloemen, Flemish landscape painter
July 16 – Jan Kupecký, Czech and Slovak portrait painter
July 20 – Giuseppe Antonio Caccioli, Italian painter
July 21 – Johann Evangelist Holzer, Austrian-German painter
September 2 – Pietro Bianchi, Italian painter, active in Genoa and Rome
November 22 – Georg Gsell, Swiss painter
December 24 – Bernard Lens III, English artist known primarily for his portrait miniatures date unknown
* Francesco Costa, Italian painter of ornaments and quadratura
* Franz de Paula Ferg, Austrian landscape painter
* Francesco Fernandi, Italian painter
* Jean Joly, French sculptor
* Antonio Lorenzini, Italian painter and engraver
* Grigoriis Musikiysky, Russian painter
* Giacomo Pavia, Italian painter, active mainly in his native Bologna
* Giovanni Felice Ramelli, Italian miniaturist
* Arcangelo Resani, Italian painter of animals and hunted game
* Giuseppe Rivola, Italian painter
* Jacob van Huysum, Dutch botanical artist probable – Guglielmo da Leoni, Italian painter and engraver