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
 * Francisco Goya – Children With a Cart
 * Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait busts of Rousseau and Voltaire
 * 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
 * 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)
 * September 11 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German painter and grandson of the composer (born 1748)
 * 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)
 * Jean Girardet, French painter of portrait miniatures (born 1709)
 * Ignazio Hugford, or Ignatius Heckford, Florentine painter (born 1703)
 * Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French sculptor (born 1704)
 * Wojciech Rojowski, Polish sculptor and woodcarver (born unknown)
 * Pieter Vanderlyn, American colonial painter (born 1687)