Events from the year 1561 in art.

• Sculptors Bernhard and Arnold Abel are recorded as working at the Imperial Court in Vienna.^[1]
• Juan Bautista Vázquez the Elder moves to Seville to complete an altarpiece, and remains there to work.
• Michelangelo ceases work on the Pietà Firenze.

• Alessandro Allori – Portrait of a Young Man (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
• Jacopo Bassano – The Journey of Jacob
• Titian – Mary Magdalene
• Paolo Veronese – Muse with a Lyre

• date unknown
  • Cornelis Danckerts de Ry, Dutch architect and sculptor (died 1634)
  • Johann Theodor de Bry, Flemish painter and engraver (died 1623)
  • Zacharias Dolendo, Dutch engraver (died 1601)
  • Antonio Mohedano, Spanish painter of the Renaissance period (died 1625)
  • Tobias Verhaecht, landscape painter and draughtsman in Italy and Antwerp (died 1631)
• probable
  • Jan Collaert II, Flemish engraver and printmaker (died 1620)
  • Toussaint Dubreuil, French painter (died 1602)
  • Léonard Gaultier, French engraver (died 1641)
  • Adam van Noort, Flemish painter and draughtsman (died 1641)
  • Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Artist of the Tudor court, portraitist (died 1636)

• January 9- Luca Martini, Italian arts patron (born 1507
• February - Roque Balduque, French sculptor (date of birth unknown)
• March 4 - Lancelot Blondeel, Bruges-based Flemish painter (born 1498)
• November 8 - Ippolito Costa, Italian painter (born 1506)
• date unknown
  • Alonso Berruguete, Spanish painter, sculptor and architect (born 1488)
  • Simon Bening, miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school (born 1483)
  • Hans Bocksberger der Ältere, Austrian painter (born 1510)
  • Paul Dax, Austrian artist (born 1503)
  • Battista Franco Veneziano, Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker in etching (born c.1510)
• probable
  • Erhard Altdorfer, German Early Renaissance printmaker, painter, and architect (born 1480)
  • Bernard Salomon, French painter, draftsman and engraver (born 1506)