1848 in art

Events

• April 10 – John Ruskin marries Effie Gray in Perth, Scotland.
• September – John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti found the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the former's family home in Gower Street (London).
• c. October – The first frescoes of scenes from English literature in the Poets' Hall of the Palace of Westminster are completed: Charles West Cope's Griselda's first Trial of Patience and John Callcott Horsley's Satan touched by Ithuriel's Spear while whispering evil dreams to Eve.
• December 10 – The Leipzig Art Association opens the Städtische Museum.
• In Cambridge, England, the Fitzwilliam Museum's Founder's Building is opened.
• In Copenhagen, Denmark, the Thorvaldsen Museum of sculpture is opened.
• In England, John Webb Singer establishes the Frome Art Metal Works, a foundry that becomes Morris Singer.

Works

• Ivan Aivazovsky – Battle of Chesma
• Richard Ansdell – The Fight for the Standard
• Herman Wilhelm Bissen – Den Danske Landsoldat
• Karl Bryullov – Self-portrait
• Edward William Cooke – Dutch Yachting on the Zuider Zee
• Auguste Couder – The Tennis Court Oath
• David Cox – Crossing the Sands
• Thomas Crawford - Mexican Girl Dying
• Edward Hicks – The Cornell Farm
• Holman Hunt – The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the Drunkenness attending the Revelry, Eve of Saint Agnes
• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres – Baronne de Rothschild
• August Kopisch – The Pontine Marshes at Sunset
• Edwin Landseer – A Random Shot
• Emanuel Leutze - The Storming of Teocalli by Cortez and his Troops
• John Everett Millais – Cymon and Iphigenia
• Jean-François Millet
• *The Winnower
• *The Captivity of the Jews in Babylon
• Samuel Palmer – The Water Mill
• Ferdinand Richardt
• *Frederiksborg Castle
• *Kronborg Castle
• David Roberts – Mont Saint Michel
• Théophile Schuler – The Chariot of Death
• Clarkson Stanfield – In the Gulf of Venice
• John Evan Thomas – Death of Tewdric Mawr, King of Gwent
• Philipp Veit – Germania
• George Frederic Watts – Orlando Pursuing the Fata Morgana
• Richard Caton Woodville – ''Politics in an Oyster House''

Births

• January 13 – Lilla Cabot Perry, American painter
• February 18 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American stained glass artist
• March 1 – Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American sculptor
• March 14 – Lise Tréhot, French art model died 1922)
• March 18 – Princess Louise, member of the British royal family and sculptor
• March 22 – Sarah Purser, Irish painter and stained-glass maker
• April 29 – Raja Ravi Varma, Indian painter
• June 8 – Paul Gauguin, French post-Impressionist painter
• August 10 – William Harnett, Irish American trompe l'oeil painter
• August 19 – Gustave Caillebotte, French painter and arts patron
• September 26 – Helen Allingham, English painter and illustrator
• October 3 – Henry Lerolle, French painter and arts patron
• date unknown
• *Giovanni Battista Amendola, Italian-born sculptor
• *Helen Thornycroft, English painter

Deaths

• January 14 – Robert Adamson, Scottish pioneer photographer
• February 7 – Christen Købke, Danish painter
• February 11 – Thomas Cole, American landscape painter
• February 29 – Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, French general, painter and lithographer
• March 23 – Julien-Joseph Ducorron, Belgian landscape painter
• March 29 – Martinus Rørbye, Danish genre painter
• May 17 – Jan Frans Eliaerts, Flemish painter of animals, flowers and fruit
• May 30 – Antonio Basoli, Italian painter, interior designer, engraver and professor
• June 28 – Jean-Baptiste Debret, French painter of lithographs depicting the people of Brazil
• August 15 – Pyotr Sokolov, Russian aquarelle portraitist
• August 20 – Keisai Eisen, Japanese ukiyo-e artist
• November 14 – Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler, German sculptor
• December 13 – John Ternouth, English sculptor