1831 in art

Events

• May 1 - The Salon of 1831 opens in Paris.
• May 2 – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1831 opens at Somerset House in London
• June 21 – The North Carolina State House is razed in a blaze and therein the roof collapses on Antonio Canova's 1820 statue of George Washington, smashing it to pieces.
• October 29–31 – The 1831 Bristol riots in England are observed by local artist William James Müller who paints a series of sketches of the city in flames.
• December – Clarkson Stanfield's spectacular panorama Venice and Its Adjacent Islands is staged in London as part of the annual Christmas pantomime.
• date unknown
• *John Constable, in charge of hanging the Royal Academy of Arts' annual exhibition in London, at the last minute gives his own Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows a prominent position in place of J. M. W. Turner's Caligula's Palace and Bridge.
• *Publication of John Martin's mezzotint illustrations to The Bible begins.
• *The New Society of Painters in Water Colours is established in London.

Works

• Sir William Beechey – Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
• Karl Blechen – Tivoli Gardens at the Villa d'Este
• Léon Cogniet – Jean-François Champollion
• John Constable – Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
• Eugène Delacroix – A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother
• Paul Delaroche – King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London
• Alexandre-Jean Dubois-Drahonet – Portrait of the Marchioness of Londonderry
• Caspar David Friedrich - The Great Enclosure
• Joseph von Führich – Triumph of Christ
• Francesco Hayez
• * Portrait of Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso
• * Rebecca at the Well
• * The Refugees of Parga
• Hiroshige – Famous Places in the Eastern Capital
• Eugène Isabey – The Port of Dunkirk
• Edwin Landseer – A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society
• Charles Robert Leslie – My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman
• Ivan Martos – Alexander I Statue in Taganrog
• William Mulready – Cargill and Touchwood
• James Northcote – Chess Players
• Henry William Pickersgill – Portrait of Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• Camille Roqueplan – Coast Scene with Figures
• Clarkson Stanfield – Portsmouth Harbour
• J.M.W. Turner
• * Caligula's Palace and Bridge
• * Lifeboat and Manby Apparatus Going Off to a Stranded Vessel
• * Van Tromp's Barge Entering the Texel
• Richard Westmacott – "The Copper Horse"

Births

• February 23 – Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch marine painter
• March 12 – Benjamin Williams Leader, English landscape painter
• July 3 – Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon, French artist
• July 21 – Martha Maxwell, American naturalist and artist
• July 28 – J. L. K. van Dort, Ceylonese illustrator
• August 14 – Adolf von Becker, Finnish-born painter
• October 26 – Nathaniel Hone the Younger, Irish painter
• October 31 – Paul Durand-Ruel, French art dealer
• December 7 – Joanna Mary Boyce, English painter

Deaths

• January 6 – Ryōkan, Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk poet and calligrapher
• February 2 – Vincenzo Dimech, Maltese sculptor
• February 17 – William Armfield Hobday, English portrait painter and miniaturist
• March 22 – John Warwick Smith, British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator
• April 8 – Domenico Aspari, Italian painter and engraver
• May 8 – Emanuel Thelning, Swedish-born, Finnish painter
• May 24 – James Peale, American miniaturist and still-life painter, a younger brother of Charles Willson Peale
• May 25 – Mather Brown, portrait and historical painter
• June 1 – John Jackson, English portrait painter
• June 12 – Pierre Cartellier, French sculptor
• June 18 – Francesco Manno, Italian painter and architect
• July 11 – Richard Duppa, English writer and draughtsman
• July 13 – James Northcote, English painter
• August 5 – Richard Collins, English chief miniature and enamel painter to George III
• August 17 – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter
• August 27 – François Dumont, French painter of portrait miniatures
• September 15 – Christian David Gebauer, Danish animal painter and etcher
• September 17 – Joseph Lange, actor and amateur painter
• November 5 – Johan Frederik Clemens, Danish etcher and printmaker
• November 19 – Carl Conjola, German landscape painter
• December 17 – Amalia von Helvig, German and Swedish artist, writer, translator, and influential intellectual