1781 in art
Events from the year 1781 in art.
Events
- August 25 – The Salon of 1781 opens at the Louvre in Paris
- August 27 – Danish artists Marie Jeanne Crevoisier and Johan Frederik Clemens are married.
Works
- George Barret, Sr. – View of Windermere Lake, Early Morning
- Jacques-Louis David
- * Belisarius begging for alms
- * Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki
- Philip James de Loutherbourg – Eidophusikon
- Henry Fuseli – The Nightmare
- Thomas Gainsborough
- * Portrait of Mary Robinson
- * Portrait of Queen Charlotte
- Anton Graff – Frederick the Great, King of Prussia
- Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait busts of Voltaire and Molière
- Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Juno Borrowing the Belt of Venus
- Sir Joshua Reynolds
- *
- * George, 2nd Earl Harcourt, his wife Elizabeth and his brother William
- John Francis Rigaud – Portrait of Horatio Nelson
- George Romney
- * Ann Bowes
- * The Charteris Children
- Dominic Serres – The Moonlight Battle
- François-André Vincent – The Intervention of the Sabine Women
- Joseph Wright of Derby – Portrait of Sir Brooke Boothby
- Johann Zoffany
- * The Sayer Family of Richmond
- * ''The Sharp Family''
Births
- February 26 – Étienne-Jean Delécluze, French painter and critic
- March – John Burnet, Scottish engraver and painter
- March 13 – Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Prussian architect and painter
- March 20 – Joseph Paelinck, Belgian painter
- April 7 – Francis Leggatt Chantrey, English sculptor of the Georgian era
- April 8 – Luke Clennell, English engraver and painter
- April 22 – José de Madrazo y Agudo, Spanish Neoclassic painter
- July 25 – Merry-Joseph Blondel, French neo-classic painter
- October 12 – William Westall, English landscape painter
- November 1 – Joseph Stieler, German painter
- November 11 – Caroline Bardua, German painter
- November 21 – Cornelius Varley, English watercolor painter date unknown
- * Thomas Douglas Guest, British portrait painter
- * Francis Hervé, French-born British painter probable – John Wesley Jarvis, American painter
Deaths
- January 15 – Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet, English sculptor
- February 22 – Giovanni Maria Morlaiter, Italian Rococo sculptor
- April 10 – Teodor Kračun, Serbian painter
- June 5 – Noël Hallé, French painter, draftsman and printmaker
- September 12 – Peter Scheemakers, Flemish Roman Catholic sculptor
- September 30 – Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, French etcher and painter
- October 22 – Johann August Nahl, German sculptor and stucco artist
- November 3 – Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Swiss painter
- November 12 – Jean Grandjean, Dutch painter, draftsman, and watercolourist date unknown
- * Etienne Aubry, French painter of primarily portraits and genre subjects
- * Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, French art critic and director of the official French policy in the arts
- * Francesco Caccianiga, Italian painter and engraver
- * Carlo Costanzi, Italian gem engraver of the late-Baroque period
- * Jacques-Ignace de La Touche, French painter of miniatures and portraits
- * Ubaldo Gandolfi, Italian painter