# 1781 in art

Events from the year 1781 in art.

## Events

* August 27 – Danish artists Marie Jeanne Crevoisier and Johan Frederik Clemens are married.

## Works

* George Barret, Sr. – View of Windermere Lake, Early Morning
* Jacques-Louis David
** Belisarius begging for alms
** Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki
* Philip James de Loutherbourg – Eidophusikon
* Henry Fuseli – The Nightmare
* Thomas Gainsborough
** Mrs Robinson as Perdita
** Portrait of Queen Charlotte
* Anton Graff – Frederick the Great, King of Prussia
* Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait busts of Voltaire and Molière
* Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Juno Borrowing the Belt of Venus
* Sir Joshua Reynolds
** Emily Potts as Thaïs (Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire)
** George, 2nd Earl Harcourt, his wife Elizabeth and his brother William (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
* John Francis Rigaud – Portrait of Horatio Nelson
* George Romney
** Ann Bowes
** The Charteris Children
* Dominic Serres – The Moonlight Battle
* Joseph Wright of Derby – Portrait of Sir Brooke Boothby
* Johann Zoffany – The Sharp Family

## Births

* February 26 – Étienne-Jean Delécluze, French painter and critic (died 1863)
* March (probable) – John Burnet, Scottish engraver and painter (died 1868)
* March 13 – Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Prussian architect and painter (died 1841)
* March 20 – Joseph Paelinck, Belgian painter (died 1839)
* April 7 – Francis Leggatt Chantrey, English sculptor of the Georgian era (died 1841)
* April 8 – Luke Clennell, English engraver and painter (died 1840)
* April 22 – José de Madrazo y Agudo, Spanish Neoclassic painter (died 1859)
* July 25 – Merry-Joseph Blondel, French neo-classic painter (died 1853)
* October 12 – William Westall, English landscape painter (died 1850)
* November 1 – Joseph Stieler, German painter (died 1858)
* November 11 – Caroline Bardua, German painter (died 1864)
* November 21 – Cornelius Varley, English watercolor painter (died 1873)
* date unknown
** Thomas Douglas Guest, British portrait painter (died 1845)
** Francis Hervé, French-born British painter (died 1850)
* probable – John Wesley Jarvis, American painter (died 1839)

## Deaths

* January 15 – Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet, English sculptor (born 1703)
* February 22 – Giovanni Maria Morlaiter, Italian Rococo sculptor (born 1699)
* March 2 – Francisco Salzillo, Spanish sculptor (born 1707)
* April 10 – Teodor Kračun, Serbian painter (born 1730)
* June 5 – Noël Hallé, French painter, draftsman and printmaker (born 1711)
* September 12 – Peter Scheemakers, Flemish Roman Catholic sculptor (born 1691)
* September 30 – Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, French etcher and painter (born 1734)
* October 22 – Johann August Nahl, German sculptor and stucco artist (born 1710)
* November 3 – Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Swiss painter (born 1718)
* November 12 – Jean Grandjean, Dutch painter, draftsman, and watercolourist (born 1752)
* date unknown
** Etienne Aubry, French painter of primarily portraits and genre subjects (born 1746)
** Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, French art critic and director of the official French policy in the arts (born 1707)
** Francesco Caccianiga, Italian painter and engraver (born 1700)
** Carlo Costanzi, Italian gem engraver of the late-Baroque period (born 1705)
** Jacques-Ignace de La Touche, French painter of miniatures and portraits (born 1694)
** Ubaldo Gandolfi, Italian painter (born 1728)