1850 in art

Events

• 6 May – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1850 opens at the National Gallery in London
• Controversial exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Holman Hunt and Millais at the Royal Academy, Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents being attacked for its ultra-realism. James Collinson resigns from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
• Francisco Goya's engravings, Proverbios, are posthumously published.
• Edouard Pingret relocates to Mexico City.

Awards

• Grand Prix de Rome, painting: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Paul Baudry.
• Grand Prix de Rome, sculpture:
• Grand Prix de Rome, architecture:
• Grand Prix de Rome, music: J.A. Charlot.

Works

• Ivan Aivazovsky – The Ninth Wave
• Oswald Achenbach – Evening in the Campagna
• Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen – The Artist Painting a Cow in a Meadow Landscape
• Paul Baudry – Zenobia Found by the Shepherds
• Théodore Chassériau
• * Othello and Desdemona in Venice
• * Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville
• Marshall Claxton – Lady Godiva
• Charles Allston Collins – Berengaria's Alarm
• James Collinson
• *Answering the Emigrant's Letter
• *The Renunciation of St. Elizabeth of Hungary
• Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot – Une Matinée
• Gustave Courbet
• *A Burial At Ornans
• *The Stone Breakers
• Hippolyte Delaroche – Bonaparte Crossing the Alps
• William Maw Egley – Prospero and Miranda
• Emmanuel Frémiet
• *Wounded Bear
• *Wounded Dog
• J. W. Glass -
• *John Rolfe and Pocahontas
• Francis Grant – Portrait of John Gibson Lockhart
• Horatio Greenough – The Rescue
• Francesco Hayez
• *The Meditation
• *Susanna at her Bath
• John Rogers Herbert
• *Children of the Painter
• *'
• *'
• James Holland – Greenwich Hospital from the West Side
• William Holman Hunt – A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids
• Daniel Huntington – Feckenham in the Tower
• Edwin Landseer – A Dialogue at Waterloo
• Jan August Hendrik Leys – Divine Service in Holland
• Daniel Maclise – Macready as Werner
• Adolph von Menzel – Round Table at Sansouci
• John Everett Millais
• *Christ in the House of His Parents
• *Ferdinand Lured by Ariel
• * Portrait of Wilkie Collins
• Jean-François Millet – The Sower
• Henry Wyndham Phillips – The Royal Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851
• David Roberts – Interior of Saint-Gommaire, Lierre
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Ecce Ancilla Domini!
• Théodore Rousseau - The Forest of Fontainebleau: Morning
• Ludwig von Schwanthaler – Bavaria statue
• Carl Spitzweg – The Bookworm
• Clarkson Stanfield – Macbeth and the Witches
• J.M.W. Turner
• * The Departure of the Fleet
• * Mercury Sent to Admonish Aeneas
• George Frederic Watts – ''Found Drowned''

Births

• January 1 – Per Hasselberg, Swedish sculptor
• January 5 – Theodoor Verstraete, Belgian rural realist painter and printmaker
• January 27 – John Collier, English Pre-Raphaelite painter
• February 27 – Henry E. Huntington, American art collector
• March 9 – Sir Hamo Thornycroft, English sculptor
• April 19 – Edward John Gregory, English painter
• April 20
• * Daniel Chester French, American Aculptor
• * Jean-François Raffaëlli, French realist painter
• April 26 – Harry Bates, English sculptor
• May 8 – Almeida Júnior, Brazilian painter
• July 7 – Max Schmalzl, Bavarian religious painter and illustrator
• September 29 – George Hitchcock, American-born painter en plein air
• November 22 – Georg Dehio, Estonian-born German art historian
• September 23 – Alfred Boucher, French sculptor
• November 28 – Robert Koehler, German-born American painter
• December 25 – Florence Griswold, American curator
• December 31 – John Wycliffe Lowes Forster, Canadian portrait painter

Death

• January 16 – Daniel Caffé, German pastel painter of portraits
• January 20 – Lorenzo Bartolini, Italian sculptor
• January 22 – William Westall, English landscape painter
• January 27 – Johann Gottfried Schadow, sculptor
• February 23 – Sir William Allan, historical painter
• April 11 – Jean Augustin Daiwaille, Dutch portrait painter
• April 15 – Jules Robert Auguste, French Impressionist painter
• April 16 – Madame Marie Tussaud, French-born modeller of waxworks
• May – Richard James Wyatt, sculptor
• July 22 – Vicente López y Portaña, Spanish portrait painter
• August 13 – Sir Martin Archer Shee, Irish-born portrait painter
• August 27 – Henry Room, English portrait painter
• October 2 – Sarah Biffen, disabled English painter
• November 10 – Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, French painter and sculptor in the troubadour style
• December 8 – Anatole Devosge, French painter
• date unknown
• *Jean Broc, painter
• *Francis Hervé, painter
• *François Mulard, Neoclassical French painter
• *Fei Danxu, Chinese painter in the Qing dynasty