1840 in art

Events from the year 1840 in art.

Events

• March 4 – Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson open their "Daguerreian Parlor" on Broadway (Manhattan), the world's first commercial photography portrait studio.
• May 1 – Issue in the United Kingdom of the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, depicting the head of Queen Victoria engraved by Charles Heath and his son Frederick based on a sketch provided by Henry Corbould itself based on a cameo portrait by William Wyon, together with Mulready stationery. The stamp becomes valid for postage from May 6.
• September 30 – Foundation of Nelson's Column laid in London, Trafalgar Square being laid out and paved around it during the year.

Works

Liszt at the Piano by Josef Danhauser

Génie de la Liberté on Colonne de Juillet

• Jean-Antoine Alavoine and Joseph-Louis Duc – July Column, Place de la Bastille, Paris; incorporating Auguste Dumont's Génie de la Liberté and bas-reliefs by Antoine-Louis Barye and others
• Thomas Jones Barker – The Bride of Death
• François Bouchot – Bonaparte at the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud
• John Gadsby Chapman -
  • The Baptism of Pocahontas
• Théodore Chassériau
  • Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids
  • Diana Surprised by Actaeon
  • Portrait of Dominique Lacordaire
• Francis Danby – The Deluge
• Josef Danhauser – Liszt at the Piano
• Eugène Delacroix (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
  • Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople
  • The Shipwreck of Don Juan
• William Etty
  • Andromeda, Perseus Coming to Her Rescue
  • The Wrestlers (approximate date)
• Francis Grant – Queen Victoria Riding Out
• Horatio Greenough – George Washington (statue, Washington, D.C.)
• Benjamin Robert Haydon – The Duke of Wellington Describing the Field of Waterloo to George IV
• George Peter Alexander Healy – Portrait of Marshal Soult
• Samuel Jackson – View of the Avon at Hotwells
• Edwin Landseer – Laying Down The Law, or Trial by Jury (Chatsworth House, England)
• William Linnell -Smugglerius
• Robert Scott Lauder – Portrait of David Roberts
• Daniel Maclise
  • The Banquet Scene in Macbeth
  • Malvolio and the Countess
• John Martin – The Eve of the Deluge (British Royal Collection) and The Assuaging of the Waters (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
• Andrew Morton – The Duke of Wellington with Colonel Gurwood at Apsley House
• Edward Villiers Rippingille – Mendicants of the Roman Campagna
• David Roberts
  • Portico of the Great Temple at Baalbec
  • A View in Cairo
• Richard Rothwell – Portrait of Mary Shelley
• John Christian Schetky – Loss of the Royal George
• Clarkson Stanfield – A View of Vietri in the Gulf of Salerno
• Armand Toussaint – Persephone (sculpture) (approx. date)
• J. M. W. Turner
  • The Slave Ship, or Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
  • Venice, the Bridge of Sighs
  • Neapolitan Fisher Girls Surprised Bathing by Moonlight
• Horace Vernet
  • Judah and Tamar
  • The Siege of Antwerp
• Theodor von Holst – The Wish
• George Frederic Watts – The Ionides Family
• David Wilkie
  • Portrait of Abdülmecid I
  • Portrait of Queen Victoria
• Franz Xaver Winterhalter –
  • Portrait of the Duchess of Nemours
  • Portrait of Leopold I of Belgium

Awards

• Grand Prix de Rome, painting:
• Grand Prix de Rome, sculpture:
• Grand Prix de Rome, architecture: Théodore Ballu
• Grand Prix de Rome, music: F.E.V. Bazin

Births

• February 7 – Ida Göthilda Nilsson, Swedish sculptor (died 1920)
• March 10 – Charles Augustus Howell, Portuguese-British art dealer (died 1890)
• April 22 – Odilon Redon, French painter and graphic artist (died 1916)
• April 28 – Caroline Shawk Brooks, American sculptor (died 1913)
• May 2 – Philippe Solari, Provençal sculptor (died 1906)
• May 28 – Hans Makart, Austrian painter and designer (died 1884)
• July 8 – Heinrich von Angeli, Austrian society portrait painter (died 1925)
• August 14 – Briton Rivière, English painter (died 1920)
• September 27 – Thomas Nast, German American cartoonist (died 1902)
• November 12 – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (died 1917)
• November 14 – Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter (died 1926)
• December 1 – Marie Bracquemond, née Quivoron, French Impressionist painter (died 1916)
• probable – Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Irish American photographer of the American Civil War (died 1882)

Deaths

• January 16 – František Tkadlík, Czech painter (born 1786)
• February 9 – Luke Clennell, English engraver and painter (born 1781)
• February 27 – Henry Wyatt, English portrait painter (born 1794)
• March 19 – Thomas Daniell, landscape painter (born 1749)
• March 30 – Beau Brummell, leader of fashion (born 1778)
• April 7 – William Heath, English satirical engraver (born 1794)
• April 10 – Alexander Nasmyth, painter (born 1758)
• May 5 – Robert Trewick Bone English painter of sacred, classical and genre scenes (born 1790)
• May 7 – Caspar David Friedrich, painter (born 1774)
• May 11 – Eduard Joseph d'Alton, German engraver and naturalist (born 1772)
• June 20 – Pierre-Joseph Redouté, flower painter (born 1759)
• July 6 – Johann Heinrich Ramberg, German painter and printmaker (born 1763)
• July 23 – Carl Blechen, German painter, specializing in fantastic landscapes with demons and grotesque figures (born 1798)
• August 30 – Jonas Damelis, Lithuanian neoclassicist painter (born 1780)
• October 28 – Reverend John Thomson, minister of Duddingston Kirk near Edinburgh, and landscape painter (born 1778)
• November 7 – Pierre Petitot, French sculptor (born 1760)
• December 11 – Franz Bauer, Austrian microscopist and botanical artist (born 1758)
• date unknown
  • Moritz Fuerst, American engraver and medallist (born 1782)
  • Luigi Rados, Italian engraver (born 1773)