1820 in art

Events

Venus de Milo on display at the Louvre

• April 8 - The Venus de Milo is discovered on the island of Melos (Greek: Milos).
• Publication of William Blake's prophetic book Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (colored engravings) is completed in London (commenced 1804).

Works

• William Blake – The Ghost of a Flea
• Augustus Wall Callcott – A Dead Calm on the Medway
• John Constable – Harwich Lighthouse
• Johan Christian Dahl – View from a Window at Quisisana
• William Etty
  • Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, As She Goes to Bed
  • Female Nude in a Landscape
• Francisco Goya – Self-portrait with Dr Arrieta
• George Hayter
  • Portrait of Lord Holland
  • Venus supported by Iris, complaining to Mars
• Thomas Luny – Bombardment of Algiers
• Jean-Baptiste Regnault
  • The Judgement of Paris (approximate date)
  • Love and Hymen drinking from the cup of Friendship (Musée Bossuet, Meaux)
• John Trumbull – Surrender of Lord Cornwallis
• David Wilkie – Reading the Will

Births

• February 28 – Sir John Tenniel, illustrator (died 1914)
• April 6 – Nadar, photographer and caricaturist (died 1910)
• May 12 – Josef Mánes, painter (died 1871)
• July 9 - John Wright Oakes, landscape painter (died 1887)
• July 25 – Henry Doulton, potter (died 1897)
• December – Eugène Fromentin, painter (died 1876)
• December 16 – Sir George Scharf, art critic (died 1895)
• date unknown – John Frederick Herring, Jr., English sporting and equestrian painter (died 1897)

Deaths

• January 29 – George III of the United Kingdom, patron of the arts and collector (born 1738)
• March 9 - Hermanus Numan, Dutch artist, art theorist, and publisher (born 1744)
• March 11 – Benjamin West, painter (born 1738)
• March 27 – Gerhard von Kügelgen, German painter of portraits and history paintings (born 1772)
• May 17 - Vincenzo Brenna, Italian painter and house architect of Paul I of Russia (born 1747)
• October 10 – Uragami Gyokudō, Japanese musician, painter, poet and calligrapher (born 1745)
• date unknown
  • Okada Beisanjin, Japanese painter (born 1744)
  • Pietro Bonato, Italian painter and engraver (born 1765)
  • Jean Simeon Rousseau de la Rottiere, decorative painter (born 1747)
  • Kitao Shigemasa, Japanese ukiyo-e artist from Edo (born 1739)
  • Quirinus van Amelsfoort, Dutch allegory, historical, and portrait painter (born 1760)