1871 in art

Events from the year 1871 in art.

Events

 * March – Edward Lear settles at his villa in Sanremo.
 * Spring – James McNeill Whistler publishes Sixteen etchings of scenes on the Thames and paints his first "moonlights" (later called "nocturnes") of the river.
 * March 18–May 28 – Paris Commune:
 * April 5 – Federation of Artists, organized by Gustave Courbet, holds its first meeting in Paris. Membership includes Jules Dalou, Honoré Daumier, André Gill and Eugène Pottier; Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Édouard Manet are also members but do not actively participate.
 * May 16 – Napoleonic column in the Place Vendôme is pulled down according to a suggestion by Courbet, one of the events photographed by Bruno Braquehais.
 * May – André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri photographs dead Communards.
 * c. May – James Tissot flees Paris for London.
 * June 14 – Camille Pissarro marries his mistress Julie Vellay in the London borough of Croydon and moves to Pontoise.
 * August 14 – Courbet is sentenced to 6 months imprisonment and a fine for his participation in the Paris Commune; during his time in prison he produces a series of still life paintings of fruit and flowers.
 * Summer – Claude Monet visits Zaandam.
 * December – Monet and his wife Camille move to Argenteuil.
 * William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti become tenants of Kelmscott Manor, which they share with Jane Morris.
 * Marie Spartali marries William James Stillman.
 * Edwin B. Crocker establishes the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California.

Works

 * Frederic Edwin Church – The Parthenon
 * Antonio Ciseri – Ecce Homo
 * Confederate Monument (Liberty, Mississippi)
 * Edgar Degas – Count Lepic and His Daughters
 * Friedrich Drake – Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Philadelphia)
 * Thomas Eakins – Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
 * Martin Johnson Heade – Cattleya Orchid and Three Hummingbirds
 * Frank Holl – No Tidings from the Sea
 * Daniel Huntington – The Narrows, Lake George
 * Eastman Johnson – The Old Stagecoach
 * Ivan Kramskoi – The Mermaids
 * Édouard Manet
 * The Harbour at Bordeaux (E.G. Bührle collection, Zürich)
 * The Barricade (Civil War) (Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest))
 * John Everett Millais – Victory O Lord!
 * Claude Monet – A Windmill at Zaandam
 * Albert Joseph Moore – Sea Gulls
 * Camille Pissarro – Lordship Lane Station, Upper Norwood
 * Vinnie Ream – Abraham Lincoln (marble, United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, D.C.)
 * Randolph Rogers – Statue of Abraham Lincoln (bronze, Philadelphia)
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 * Dante's Dream
 * Pandora
 * Amanda Sidwall – Self-portrait
 * George Blackall Simonds – The Falconer sculpture
 * Vasily Vereshchagin
 * At the city wall: "Let them in!"
 * The Apotheosis of War
 * Heinrich von Angeli – Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia
 * George Frederic Watts – Portrait of Frederic Leighton
 * Alfred Waud – A Home on the Mississippi
 * James McNeill Whistler
 * Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 ("Whistler's Mother")
 * Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea
 * Symphony in Grey: Early Morning, Thames
 * Variations in Pink And Grey – Chelsea
 * Variations in Violet and Green – Chelsea

Births

 * January 27 – Samuel Peploe, Scottish painter (died 1935)
 * March 2 – Albert Herter, American painter (died 1950)
 * March 9 – Granville Redmond, American painter (died 1935)
 * April 11 – Theodor Pallady, Romanian painter (died 1956)
 * May ? – Elinor Darwin, née Monsell, Irish-born engraver and portrait painter (died 1954)
 * May 1 – Miklós Ligeti, Hungarian sculptor (died 1944)
 * May 11 – Mariano Fortuny, Spanish-born fashion designer (died 1949)
 * May 27 – Georges Rouault, French Expressionist painter and stained glass artist (died 1958)
 * June 12 – Victor David Brenner, Lithuanian-born American medalist, sculptor and engraver (died 1924)
 * July 24 – Giacomo Balla, Italian painter (died 1958)
 * August 22 – Émile André, French architect and designer (died 1933)
 * October 26 – Guillermo Kahlo, German-born photographer (died 1941)
 * date unknown – Peter Moog, German outsider artist (died 1930)

Deaths

 * January 1 – Alexander Munro, Scottish-born Pre-Raphaelite sculptor (born 1825)
 * January 14 – Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala, Spanish painter (born 1841)
 * January 18 – Sir George Hayter, English painter, specialising in portraits (born 1792)
 * January 19 – Henri Regnault, French painter (born 1843)
 * February 8 – Moritz von Schwind, Austrian painter (born 1804)
 * February 20 – Paul Kane, Irish-Canadian painter (born 1810)
 * February 26 – Sophia Hawthorne, American painter and illustrator (born 1809)
 * March 3 – Michael Thonet, German-Austrian furniture designer (born 1796)
 * March – Emma Fürstenhoff, Swedish florist (born 1802)
 * April 6 – Emma Eleonora Kendrick, English miniature painter (born 1788)
 * April 24 – Karl Girardet, French painter (born 1813)
 * June 9 – Anna Atkins, English botanist and pioneer photographer (born 1799)
 * June 19 – Johann Fischbach, Austrian painter of landscapes and genre arts (born 1797)
 * July 30 – Edwin Wilkins Field, English lawyer and painter (born 1804)
 * October 14 – Johan Frederik Møller, Danish painter and photographer (born 1797)
 * December 9 – Josef Mánes, Czech painter (born 1820)
 * December 21 – Paul Guigou, French painter (born 1834)