1785 in art

Events from the year 1785 in art.

Events

27 April – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1785 opens at Somerset House in London
April Joseph Wright of Derby holds a one-man exhibition in Covent Garden in London, having severed his official connection with the Royal Academy
25 August – The Salon of 1785 opens at the Louvre in Paris

January 8 – Jan Baptiste de Jonghe, Belgian landscape painter (died 1844)
April 26 – John James Audubon, Haitian-born American naturalist and painter (died 1851)
September 1 – José Gil de Castro, Afro-Peruvian painter especially of portraits of Peru's heroes (died c. 1841)
September 26 – Charles Bird King, American portrait artist who notably paints Native American delegates visiting Washington, D.C. (died 1862)
October 12 – Henry Thomas Alken, English engraver, illustrator and sporting artist (died 1851)
October 31 – Georg Friedrich Kersting, German painter of Biedermeier-style interior paintings (died 1847)
November 18 – David Wilkie, Scottish painter and engraver (died 1841)
December 1 – Abraham Constantin, Swiss enamel painter (died 1851)
December 23 – Christian Gobrecht, American engraver (died 1844)
December 30 – Edouard Pingret, French painter and lithographer (died 1869)
date unknown
- Pál Balkay, Hungarian painter and teacher (died 1846)
- Daniel Havell, English engraver (died 1822)
- Ignatius Josephus van Regemorter, Flemish historical, landscape and genre painter and engraver (died 1873)
probable – Bernardo Consorti, Italian line-engraver (died unknown)

January 2 – Andrés de la Calleja, Spanish painter (born 1705)
April 13 – Michel-François Dandré-Bardon, French historical painter and etcher (born 1700)
May 8 – Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (born 1701)
August 20 – Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (born 1714)^[3]
October 4 – Alexander Runciman, Scottish painter (born 1736)
October 19 – Hugues Taraval, French painter (born 1729)
December 14 – Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Italian painter and engraver (born 1727)
date unknown
- John Hodges Benwell, English genre painter (born 1764; consumption)^[4]
- Johannes de Bosch, Dutch painter, engraver and draughtsman (born 1713)
- William Cochran, Scottish painter (born 1738)^[5]
- Pietro Gaspari, Italian artist, known for veduta and capriccio in etchings and paintings (born 1720)
- Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty, French painter and printmaker (born 1716)
- Jean-Baptiste Le Paon, French battle scene painter (born 1736/38)
- José Luzán, Spanish Baroque painter (born 1710)
- Krzysztof Perwanger, Polish sculptor and mayor (born 1700)

^ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435630
^ https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010061844
^ Barton, Eleanor Dodge Barton (1976). "Pigalle, Jean Baptiste". In William D. Halsey (ed.). Collier's Encyclopedia. Vol. 19. New York: Macmillan Educational Corporation. p. 43.
^ "Benwell, John Hodges". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
^ This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Cochran, William". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.