Events from the year 1779 in art.

Events

• October 8 – William Blake enrols as a student with the Royal Academy of Arts at Somerset House in London.

Paintings

Charles Willson Peale, Washington at Princeton, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

• Per Krafft the Elder – Carl Michael Bellman
• David Martin – Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Murray
• Charles Willson Peale – George Washington at Princeton
• Sir Joshua Reynolds
  • Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children
  • Lady Jane Halliday
  • Admiral Lord Keppel (National Portrait Gallery, London)
• George Stubbs
  • The Labourers
  • A Lion and a Tiger
  • Mambrino

Births

• January 3 – Gustav Philipp Zwinger, German painter (died 1819)
• February 20 – Augustus Wall Callcott, English landscape painter (died 1844)
• March 21 – Vojtěch Benedikt Juhn, Czech painter and engraver (died 1843)
• April 19 - Anson Dickinson, American painter of miniature portraits (died 1852)
• May 27 – Juan Antonio Ribera, Spanish Neoclassicism painter (died 1860)
• July 8 – Giorgio Pullicino, Maltese painter and architect (died 1851)
• July 26 – Erik Gustaf Göthe, Swedish sculptor (died 1838)
• August 24 – Charles Norris, English topographical etcher and writer known for his landscape work of the Welsh countryside (died 1858)
• November 4 – Jan Willem Pieneman, Dutch historical painter (died 1853)
• November 5 – Washington Allston, American painter, the "American Titian" (died 1843)
• November 6 – Henry Pierce Bone, English enamel painter (died 1855)
• December 9 – Moritz Retzsch, German painter and etcher (died 1857)
• date unknown
  • Paolo Caronni, Italian engraver (died 1842)
  • Guillaume Descamps, French painter and engraver (died 1858)
  • Vasily Demut-Malinovsky, Russian sculptor in the Empire style (died 1846)

Deaths

• January 26 – Thomas Hudson, English portrait painter (born 1701)
• February 4 – John Hamilton Mortimer, English Neoclassical painter known primarily for his romantic paintings and pieces set in Italy and its countryside (born 1740)
• March 14 – Joseph-Charles Roettiers, French engraver and medallist (born 1689)
• April – Károly Bebo, Hungarian sculptor, builder and decorator noted for his stucco work (born 1712)
• June 29 – Anton Raphael Mengs, German painter (born 1728)
• September 14 – Anton Pichler, Austrian goldsmith and engraver (born 1697)
• December 6 – Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, French painter (born 1699)
• date unknown
  • John Giles Eccardt, German-born English portrait painter (died 1779)
  • Lorenzo Feliciati, Italian painter (born 1732)