1850 in art
Events from the year 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