1840 in art

Events

• 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,^[1][2] together with Mulready stationery. The stamp becomes valid for postage from May 6.^[3]
• September 30 – Foundation of Nelson's Column laid in London,^[4] Trafalgar Square being laid out and paved around it during the year.^[5]

Works

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 – Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in Saint-Cloud
• Francis Danby – The Deluge
• Eugène Delacroix (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
  • Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople
  • The Shipwreck of Don Juan
• Horatio Greenough – George Washington (statue, Washington, D.C.)
• Edwin Landseer – Laying Down The Law, or Trial by Jury (Chatsworth House, England)
• Robert Scott Lauder – David Roberts Esq. in the dress he wore in Palestine
• John Martin – The Eve of the Deluge (British Royal Collection) and The Assuaging of the Waters (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
• John Christian Schetky – Loss of the Royal George
• 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)

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

• 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)
• 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)
• date unknown - Ida Göthilda Nilsson, Swedish sculptor (died 1920)
• 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 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)
• October 28 - Reverend John Thomson, minister of Duddingston Kirk near Edinburgh, and landscape painter (born 1778)
• December 11 - Franz Bauer, Austrian microscopist and botanical artist (born 1758)
• date unknown
  • Jonas Damelis, Lithuanian neoclassicist painter (born 1780)
  • Moritz Fuerst, American engraver and medallist (born 1782)
  • Luigi Rados, Italian engraver (born 1773)

References