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)^[1]
  • Rembrandt Peale, American artist (died 1860)^[2]
• May 31 – John Jackson, English portrait painter (died 1831)^[3]
• June 7 – Beau Brummell, leader of fashion (died 1840)
• June 10
  • Cornelis Cels, Belgian painter of portraits and historical subjects (died 1859)^[4]
  • Joseph Willibrord Mähler, German portrait painter (died 1860)^[5]
• 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)^[6]
  • 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)^[7]
• October 5 – John James Masquerier, British portrait artist (died 1855)
• date unknown
  • Allen Robert Branston, English wood-engraver (died 1827)^[8]
  • 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)^[9]
• 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)^[10]
  • Jean Girardet, French painter of portrait miniatures (born 1709)^[11]
  • Ignazio Hugford, or Ignatius Heckford, Florentine painter (born 1703)^[12]
  • Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French sculptor (born 1704)
  • Wojciech Rojowski, Polish sculptor and woodcarver (born unknown)
  • Pieter Vanderlyn, American colonial painter (born 1687)^[13]