1840 in art

Events from the year 1840 in art.

• March 4 – Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson open their "Daguerreian Parlor" on Broadway (Manhattan), the world's first commercial photography portrait studio.
• 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]

• 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
• John Gadsby Chapman -
  • The Baptism of Pocahontas
• Théodore Chassériau
  • Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids
  • Diana Surprised by Actaeon
  • Portrait of the Reverend Father Dominique Lacordaire, of the Order of the Predicant Friars
• Francis Danby – The Deluge
• Eugène Delacroix (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
  • Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople
  • The Shipwreck of Don Juan
• William Etty – The Wrestlers (approximate date)
• Francis Grant – Queen Victoria Riding Out
• Horatio Greenough – George Washington (statue, Washington, D.C.)
• Benjamin Robert Haydon – The Duke of Wellington Describing the Field of Waterloo to George IV
• Edwin Landseer – Laying Down The Law, or Trial by Jury (Chatsworth House, England)
• William Linnell -Smugglerius^[6]
• 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)
  • Venice, the Bridge of Sighs
• Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Portrait of Leopold I

• 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.

• February 7 – Ida Göthilda Nilsson, Swedish sculptor (died 1920)
• 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)
• July 8 – Heinrich von Angeli, Austrian society portrait painter (died 1925)
• 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)^[7]
• December 1 – Marie Bracquemond, née Quivoron, French Impressionist painter (died 1916)
• probable – Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Irish American photographer of the American Civil War (died 1882)

• 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 7 – William Heath, English satirical engraver (born 1794)^[8]
• 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)
• August 30 - Jonas Damelis, Lithuanian neoclassicist painter (born 1780)
• October 28 – Reverend John Thomson, minister of Duddingston Kirk near Edinburgh, and landscape painter (born 1778)
• November 7 – Pierre Petitot, French sculptor (born 1760)
• December 11 – Franz Bauer, Austrian microscopist and botanical artist (born 1758)
• date unknown
  • Moritz Fuerst, American engraver and medallist (born 1782)
  • Luigi Rados, Italian engraver (born 1773)