Events from the year 1681 in art.

• Caius Gabriel Cibber - Statue of Charles II, Soho Square
• Jean Cotelle - Marriage at Cana (for Notre Dame de Paris)
• Claude Lorrain - Landscape with Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen
• Carlo Maratta - Apollo Chasing Daphne

• March 30 - Pieter Snyers, Flemish art collector, painter, draughtsman, engraver (died 1752)
• April 9 – Nicolas Edelinck, French-born engraver, son of Gerard Edelinck (died 1767)
• April 18 – Girolamo Donnini, Italian painter of the Baroque period (died 1743)
• December 14 – Giuseppe Valentini, Italian violinist, painter, poet, and composer (died 1753)
• date unknown
  • Francesco Conti, Italian Venetian painter (died 1760)
  • Johann Jakob Frey the Elder, Swiss engraver (died 1752)
  • Peter Monamy, English marine painter (died 1749)
  • Girolamo Odam, Italian painter, pastel portraitist and landscape artist, as well as wood engraver (died 1718)

• February 11 – Gerard Soest, Dutch painter, father of Gerard ter Borch (born 1600)
• March 12
  • Giuseppe Bonati, Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Rome and Ferrara (born 1635)
  • Frans van Mieris, Sr., Dutch genre and portrait painter (born 1635)
• April 12 – Pietro Paolini, Italian painter of still lifes and cabinet pictures (born 1603)
• April 23 - Justus Sustermans, Flemish painter in the Baroque style (born 1597)
• June 1 – Cornelis Saftleven, Dutch painter of the Baroque period (born 1607)
• November 11 - Jacob Marrel, Dutch still-life painter (born 1613)
• December 8 – Gerard ter Borch, Dutch subject painter (born 1617)
• December 10 - Gaspard Marsy, French sculptor (born 1624)
• date unknown
  • Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, Italian painter from the Bolognese School (born 1609)
  • Pierfrancesco Cittadini, Italian painter of still life (born 1616)
  • Giacinto Gimignani, Italian painter, active mainly in Rome, during the Baroque period (born 1606)
  • Albrecht Kauw, Swiss still-life painter, cartographer and a painter of vedute (born 1621)
  • Juan Rizi, Spanish painter (born 1600)
  • Diego Quispe Tito, Peruvian painter, leader of the Cuzco School of painting (born 1611)