1749 in art

Events

• February – A Roman statue of Cupid and Psyche is discovered in the garden of the canonico Panicale on the Aventine Hill and given by Pope Benedict XIV to the Capitoline Museums, where it is conserved.
• John Shackleton is appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to King George II of Great Britain.

Works

• Canaletto completes his painting of Warwick Castle now at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin refines technique for reflected light on glass and silver, painting The Silver Beaker.
• Thomas Hudson – Portrait of Admiral Byng
• Jean-Baptiste Oudry paints Clara the Rhinoceros, a portrait of the rhinoceros Clara at this date on display in Paris.
• Joshua Reynolds – Portrait of Augustus Keppel
• Louis-François Roubiliac's memorial to the Duke of Argyll, his first work in Westminster Abbey, is installed.
• Samuel Scott – Lord Anson's Victory off Cape Finisterre
• Gervase Spencer paints a miniature self-portrait.

Births

• January 13 – Friedrich Müller, painter, narrator, lyricist and dramatist
• January 23 – Joseph Reinhart, Swiss painter and draftsman
• February 14 – Henry Pelham, American painter, engraver, and cartographer
• April 6 – Moses Griffith, Welsh draughtsman, engraver and water colourist
• April 11 – Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, French portrait painter
• July 26 – John Warwick Smith, British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator
• August 28 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist, dramatist, theorist, painter
• October – Archibald Skirving, Scottish portrait painter
• October 27 – Joseph Strutt, engraver and antiquary
• November 8 – Anne Seymour Damer, English sculptor
• November 23 – Franz Kobell, German painter, etcher and draftsman
• November 29 – Johan Frederik Clemens, Danish etcher and printmaker date unknown
• * George Beck, American painter and poet
• * Paolo Borroni, Italian painter of the Neoclassical style
• * Thomas Burke, Irish engraver and painter
• * Thomas Daniell, English landscape painter
• * Charles Nicolas Favart, French actor, playwright, and painter
• * James Peale, American painter, best known for his miniature and still-life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale
• * Edward Smyth, Irish sculptor
• * Johann Ziegler, Austrian painter of landscapes and city scenes

Deaths

• January 8 – Donato Creti, Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna
• February – Peter Monamy, English marine painter
• February 8 – Jan van Huysum, Dutch painter
• March 12 – Alessandro Magnasco, Italian Rococo painter of genre or landscape scenes
• April 14 – Balthasar Denner, German portrait painter
• May 28 – Pierre Subleyras, French painter, active during the late-Baroque and early-Neoclassic period
• December 11 – Bernardino Ludovisi, Italian sculptor
• December 24 – Michelangelo Cerruti, Italian fresco artist date unknown
• * Maria Oriana Galli-Bibiena, Italian painter
• * Gao Fenghan, Chinese painter
• * Aureliano Milani, Italian painter and teacher in Bologna
• probable
• * Vincenzo Damini, Italian portrait and fresco painter