# 1778 in art

Events from the year 1778 in art.

## Events

* December – The artistic cargo of the British ship Westmorland, seized by the French, is acquired by Spanish interests.
* Nicholas Pocock gives up his career as a seaman and devotes himself to painting.

## Paintings

* John Singleton Copley – Watson and the Shark
* Thomas Gainsborough
** Portrait of Philip James de Loutherbourg
** Portrait of James Christie
* Francisco Goya – Children With a Cart
* Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait busts of Rousseau and Voltaire
* Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Portrait of Joseph Vernet
* David Martin – Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray
* John Hamilton Mortimer – Sir Arthegal, the Knight of Justice, with Talus, the Iron Man (from Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queene’)
* Sir Joshua Reynolds
** Jane, Countess of Harrington
** Lady Caroline Howard
** Captain John Hayes St Leger
* George Romney – Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon, and Her Son, George Gordon
* Richard Samuel – Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo
* Gilbert Stuart – Self-portrait
* Benjamin West
** The Battle of the Boyne
** The Battle of La Hogue
* Johann Zoffany – Tribuna of the Uffizi (completed)

## Births

* January 1 – Charles Alexandre Lesueur, artist and explorer (died 1846)
* February 22
** Franz Ludwig Catel, German artist (died 1856)
** Rembrandt Peale, American artist (died 1860)
* May 31 – John Jackson, English portrait painter (died 1831)
* June 7 – Beau Brummell, leader of fashion (died 1840)
* June 10
** Cornelis Cels, Belgian painter of portraits and historical subjects (died 1859)
** Joseph Willibrord Mähler, German portrait painter (died 1860)
* June 15 – Henri Jean-Baptiste Victoire Fradelle, Franco-English painter (died 1865)
* August 4 – Christian Duttenhofer, German engraver (died 1843)
* August 11 – John Christian Schetky, Scottish-born marine painter (died 1874)
* August 17
** Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek, Dutch painter (died 1851)
** John Varley, English watercolour painter and astrologer (died 1842)
** Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek, Dutch painter and draughtsman (died 1851)
* August 31 – Friedrich August von Klinkowström, German artist, author and teacher (died 1835)
* September 1 – Reverend John Thomson, minister of Duddingston Kirk and Landscape artist (died 1840)
* October 5 – John James Masquerier, British portrait artist (died 1855)
* date unknown
** Allen Robert Branston, English wood-engraver (died 1827)
** Wilhelmina Krafft, Swedish painter and portrait miniaturist (died 1828)
** Nukina Kaioku, Japanese painter and calligrapher (died 1863)
** Tang Yifen, Chinese landscape painter and calligrapher during the Qing Dynasty (died 1853)

## Deaths

* January 4 - Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen, French painter and draftsman (born 1720)
* February 19 – Nathan Drake, English painter (born c.1728)
* February 24 – Laurent Delvaux, French sculptor (born 1696)
* March – Thomas Roberts, Irish landscape painter (born 1748)
* March 6 – Gaudenzio Botti, Italian painter, mainly active in Brescia (born 1698)
* May 20 – Gaetano Zompini, Italian printmaker and engraver (born 1700)
* May 25 – Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French sculptor (born 1704)
* September 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German painter and grandson of the composer (born 1748)
* September 28 – Jean Girardet, French painter of portrait miniatures (born 1709)
* October 2 – Françoise Duparc, Spanish born Baroque painter who later lived in France (born 1726)
* November 9 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist (born 1720)
* December 15 - Catherine Read, Scottish portrait-painter (born 1723)
* December 22 – Simon Mathurin Lantara, French landscape painter (born 1729)
* date unknown
** John Cobb, English cabinetmaker (born 1710)
** Ignazio Hugford, or Ignatius Heckford, Florentine painter (born 1703)
** Wojciech Rojowski, Polish sculptor and woodcarver (born unknown)
** Pieter Vanderlyn, American colonial painter (born 1687)