1806 in art

Events

• 18 January – The British Institution opens the former Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, London, as the "British Gallery", alternating the world's first regular temporary exhibitions of Old Master paintings with sale exhibitions of the work of living artists.
• 5 May – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1806 opens at Somerset House in London.

Works

• Antonio Canova – Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker
• Marguerite Gérard – The Clemency of Napoleon
• Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson – Charles-Marie Bonaparte
• John Hoppner – '
• Jean-Antoine Houdon –
• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
• * '
• * Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière
• * Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne
• Thomas Lawrence – Portrait of Lord Westmoreland
• Henry Raeburn –
• Philipp Otto Runge – The Hülsenbeck Children
• Joseph Karl Stieler – Self-portrait
• Benjamin West
• *The Death of Nelson
• * Portrait of Robert Fulton
• *Thetis Bringing the Armor to Achilles
• David Wilkie
• * The Blind Fiddler
• * ''''

Births

• 10 January – Louis Joseph César Ducornet, French painter
• 13 January – Eugen Napoleon Neureuther, German painter and illustrator
• 25 January – Daniel Maclise, Irish-born painter
• 1 February – George Harvey, Scottish genre painter
• 22 February – Antoine Wiertz, Belgian painter
• 8 March – Antonio María Esquivel, Spanish Romantic painter
• 12 April – Peter Rindisbacher, Swiss-born anthropological painter
• 2 May – Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, Swiss painter
• 4 June – Daniel Macnee, Scottish portrait painter
• 11 June – James Ballantine, Scottish painter and author
• 28 July – Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, Russian painter who adhered to Neoclassicism
• 19 September – William Dyce, Scottish-born painter
• 24 September – Niels Christian Kierkegaard, Danish draftsman and lithographer
• October – David Scott, Scottish historical painter

Deaths

• 6 January – Jean Henri Riesener, German furniture designer
• 22 February – James Barry, Irish painter, one of the earliest romantic painters working in Britain
• 17 March – Rienk Jelgerhuis, Dutch painter, engraver and draftsman
• April – John Russell, English portrait painter
• 8 April – Robert Barker, itinerant portrait painter
• 26 April – Václav Bernard Ambrosi, Czech miniature painter
• 5 June – Gabriel François Doyen, French painter
• 3 July – Carlo Magini, Italian painter of the Baroque period
• 10 July – George Stubbs, British painter, best known for his paintings of horses
• 22 August – Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter and printmaker
• 23 August – Johann Eleazar Zeissig, German genre, portrait and porcelain painter, and engraver
• 9 October – Friedrich August Brand, Austrian painter and engraver of historical subjects and landscapes
• 10 October – Therese Maron, German painter active in Rome
• 22 October – Thomas Sheraton, English furniture designer
• 31 October – Utamaro, Japanese printmaker and painter, especially of woodblock prints date unknown
• * Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel, English engraver
• * Henry Pelham, American painter, engraver, and cartographer
• * Johann Dallinger von Dalling, Austrian painter probable – Danwon, Korean painter of the late Joseon period