Events from the year 1781 in art.

• August 27 – Danish artists Marie Jeanne Crevoisier and Johan Frederik Clemens are married.

• George Barret, Sr. – View of Windermere Lake, Early Morning
• Jacques-Louis David
  • Belisarius begging for alms
  • Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki
• Philip James de Loutherbourg – Eidophusikon
• Henry Fuseli – The Nightmare
• Thomas Gainsborough
  • Mrs Robinson as Perdita
  • Portrait of Queen Charlotte
• Anton Graff – Frederick the Great, King of Prussia
• Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait busts of Voltaire and Molière
• Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Juno Borrowing the Belt of Venus
• Sir Joshua Reynolds
  • Emily Potts as Thaïs (Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire)
  • George, 2nd Earl Harcourt, his wife Elizabeth and his brother William (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
• John Francis Rigaud – Portrait of Horatio Nelson
• George Romney
  • Ann Bowes
  • The Charteris Children
• Dominic Serres – The Moonlight Battle
• Joseph Wright of Derby – Portrait of Sir Brooke Boothby
• Johann Zoffany – The Sharp Family

• February 26 – Étienne-Jean Delécluze, French painter and critic (died 1863)
• March (probable) – John Burnet, Scottish engraver and painter (died 1868)
• March 13 – Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Prussian architect and painter (died 1841)
• March 20 – Joseph Paelinck, Belgian painter (died 1839)
• April 7 – Francis Leggatt Chantrey, English sculptor of the Georgian era (died 1841)
• April 8 – Luke Clennell, English engraver and painter (died 1840)
• April 22 – José de Madrazo y Agudo, Spanish Neoclassic painter (died 1859)
• July 25 – Merry-Joseph Blondel, French neo-classic painter (died 1853)
• October 12 – William Westall, English landscape painter (died 1850)
• November 1 – Joseph Stieler, German painter (died 1858)
• November 11 – Caroline Bardua, German painter (died 1864)
• November 21 – Cornelius Varley, English watercolor painter (died 1873)
• date unknown
  • Thomas Douglas Guest, British portrait painter (died 1845)
  • Francis Hervé, French-born British painter (died 1850)
• probable – John Wesley Jarvis, American painter (died 1839)

• January 15 – Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet, English sculptor (born 1703)
• February 22 – Giovanni Maria Morlaiter, Italian Rococo sculptor (born 1699)
• March 2 – Francisco Salzillo, Spanish sculptor (born 1707)
• April 10 – Teodor Kračun, Serbian painter (born 1730)
• June 5 – Noël Hallé, French painter, draftsman and printmaker (born 1711)
• September 12 – Peter Scheemakers, Flemish Roman Catholic sculptor (born 1691)
• September 30 – Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, French etcher and painter (born 1734)
• October 22 – Johann August Nahl, German sculptor and stucco artist (born 1710)
• November 3 – Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Swiss painter (born 1718)
• November 12 – Jean Grandjean, Dutch painter, draftsman, and watercolourist (born 1752)
• date unknown
  • Etienne Aubry, French painter of primarily portraits and genre subjects (born 1746)
  • Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc, French art critic and director of the official French policy in the arts (born 1707)
  • Francesco Caccianiga, Italian painter and engraver (born 1700)
  • Carlo Costanzi, Italian gem engraver of the late-Baroque period (born 1705)
  • Jacques-Ignace de La Touche, French painter of miniatures and portraits (born 1694)
  • Ubaldo Gandolfi, Italian painter (born 1728)