1841 in art

Events

• May 3 – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1841 opens in London
• June 1 – Scottish painter and engraver Sir David Wilkie, returning to Britain from a voyage to the East, dies on board a ship out of Gibraltar and is buried at sea in the Bay of Gibraltar, an event commemorated in J. M. W. Turner's painting Peace - Burial at Sea.
• Fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square, London erected to the design of Charles Barry. The planned equestrian statue of King William IV being abandoned due to lack of funds, the plinth remains empty until 1999.
• George Hayter appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria.
• American artist John G. Rand invents the collapsible zinc oil paint tube, marketed by Winsor & Newton of London.
• Salon of 1841 in Paris

Publications

• Edward Lear – Views in Rome and its Environs.
• John Ruskin – The King of the Golden River, with illustrations by Richard Doyle.

Works

• Amazone zu Pferde (Kiss), Berlin
• Thomas Birch – An American Ship in Distress
• Théodore Chassériau – The Toilette of Esther or Esther Preparing to be Presented to King Ahasuerus
• Thomas Cole – The Fountain of Vaucluse
• Auguste Couder – Muhammad Ali, Viceroy of Egypt
• Francis Danby – The Enchanted Castle
• Hippolyte Delaroche – Hémicycle in École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
• Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg – A Nude Woman Doing Her Hair Before a Mirror
• William Etty – Female Bathers Surprised by a Swan
• Richard Evans – Portrait of George Bradshaw
• Benjamin Robert Haydon – The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840
• Francesco Hayez – Portrait of Alessandro Manzoni
• Edwin Landseer – A Favourite Greyhound of Prince Albert
• Emanuel Leutze –Christopher Columbus Before the Council of Salamanca
• John Martin
• * The Celestial City and the River of Bliss
• * Pandemonium
• Daniel Maclise – The Sleeping Beauty
• Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux – The Defence of Mazagran
• David Roberts
• * The Fountain on the Prado, Madrid
• * The Gateway to the Great Temple at Baalbec
• * The Temple of Dendera
• * A View of Toledo and the River Tagus
• William Salter – The Waterloo Banquet
• Clarkson Stanfield – The Castle of Ischia from the Mole, Italy
• J.M. W. Turner – Schloss Rosenau
• Edward Matthew Ward – Napoleon in the Prison of Nice in 1794
• Antoine Wiertz – La Chute des Anges rebelles
• David Wilkie – Portrait of Muhammad Ali of Egypt
• Franz Xaver Winterhalter
• * Portrait of Louis Philippe I
• * ''Portrait of Louise of Orléans''

Births

• January 14 – Berthe Morisot, Impressionist painter
• February 4 – Charles Édouard Delort, French academic painter
• February 16 – Armand Guillaumin, Impressionist painter
• February 25 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Impressionist painter
• September 4 – Albert Joseph Moore, painter
• December 6 – Frédéric Bazille, Impressionist painter

Deaths

• January 7 – James Arthur O'Connor, Irish landscape painter
• January 12 – Alexander Day, English miniature painter and art dealer
• February 14 – Jean-Pierre Casimir de Marcassus, Baron de Puymaurin, French chemist, medallist, politician, and man of letters
• April 10 – Henri Van Assche, Belgian painter
• June 1 – David Wilkie, Scottish painter
• July 27 – Mikhail Lermontov, Russian poet and painter
• August 15 – Elizabeth Gould, illustrator
• September 2 – Francesco Rosaspina, Italian engraver
• October 9 – Karl Friedrich Schinkel, architect and painter
• November 11 – Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy, French painter known for his landscapes
• November 17 – Cladius Detlev Fritzsch, also known as C. D. Fritzsch, was a Danish flower painter
• November 23 – Watanabe Kazan, Japanese painter, scholar and statesman
• November 25 – Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, sculptor date unknown – Gustaf Erik Hedman, Finnish painter
• probable – José Gil de Castro, Afro-Peruvian painter especially of portraits of Peru's heroes