1788 in art

Events

• Étienne Maurice Falconet becomes director of the Académie des beaux-arts.

Works

• Thomas Barrett – Charlotte Medal
• James Barry – King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia
• Jacques-Louis David – Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife
• Marguerite Gérard – First Steps
• Francisco Goya
• * Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga
• * The Meadow of San Isidro
• * St. Francis of Borja Attending a Dying Man
• Anton Graff – Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin
• Guillaume Guillon-Lethière - Brutus Condemning His Sons to Death
• Johann Zoffany – ''Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match''

Births

• February 5 – Sarah Goodridge, American painter who specialized in miniatures
• February 24 – Johan Christian Dahl, Norwegian landscape painter
• February 29 – Catharine Hermine Kølle, Norwegian adventurer and painter
• March 12 – Pierre Jean David, sculptor and engraver
• April 5 – Franz Pforr, painter
• April 18 – Charles de Steuben, French painter active during the Napoleonic Era
• April 20 – Emma Körner, German painter
• April 24 – Ammi Phillips, American painter
• June 18 - Ernesta Legnani Bisi, Italian painter and engraver
• September 8 – William Collins, English landscape and genre painter
• August 6 – Felix Slade, founder of the Slade School of Art
• November 4 – Jacques-Édouard Gatteaux, French sculptor and medal engraver
• November 28 – Kikuchi Yōsai – Japanese painter most famous for his monochrome portraits of historical figures date unknown
• * Michele Bisi, Italian engraver and painter
• * Albertus Jonas Brandt, Dutch still-life painter
• * Martin Cregan, Irish portrait painter
• * John Watson Gordon, painter
• * Michael Hanhart, British lithographer and chromolithographer
• * Mary Harrison, English flower and fruit painter, and illustrator
• * Emma Eleonora Kendrick, British miniature painter
• * Paolo Toschi, Italian draughtsman and engraver
• * William Edward West, American portrait painter

Deaths

• February 17 – Maurice Quentin de La Tour, French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels
• March 2 – Salomon Gessner, Swiss painter and poet
• May 29 – Jacques Aliamet, French engraver
• July 15 – Jean Germain Drouais, French historical painter
• August 2 – Thomas Gainsborough, English portrait painter
• September 27 – Sir Robert Taylor, stonemason, sculptor, and architect
• September 30 – Matthäus Günther, German painter and artist of the Baroque and Rococo era
• December 30 – Francesco Zuccarelli, Italian Rococo painter, elected in 1763 to the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts date unknown
• * Fabio Berardi, Italian engraver
• * Joseph Bergler the Elder, Austrian sculptor
• * Carlo Bonavia, Italian veduta painter
• * Gaspard Duché de Vancy, French painter and drawer
• * George Farington, English artist
• * Toriyama Sekien, scholar and ukiyo-e artist of Japanese folklore
• * François-Gaspard Teuné, French ébéniste
• * Min Zhen, Chinese painter and seal carver born in Nanchang in Jiangxi