Events from the year 1831 in art.

Events

• June 21 – The North Carolina State House is razed in a blaze and therein the roof collapses on Antonio Canova's 1820 statue of George Washington, smashing it to pieces.^[1]
• October 29–31 – The 1831 Bristol riots in England are observed by local artist William James Müller who paints a series of sketches of the city in flames.
• December – Clarkson Stanfield's spectacular panorama Venice and Its Adjacent Islands is staged in London as part of the annual Christmas pantomime.^[2]
• date unknown
  • John Constable, in charge of hanging the Royal Academy of Arts' annual exhibition in London, at the last minute gives his own Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows a prominent position in place of J. M. W. Turner's Caligula's Palace and Bridge.^[3]
  • Publication of John Martin's mezzotint illustrations to The Bible begins.
  • The New Society of Painters in Water Colours is established in London.

Works

• Sir William Beechey – Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
• Karl Blechen – Tivoli Gardens at the Villa d'Este
• Léon Cogniet – Jean-François Champollion
• John Constable – Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
• Eugène Delacroix – A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother
• Paul Delaroche – King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London
• Caspar David Friedrich - The Great Enclosure
• Joseph von Führich – Triumph of Christ (Raczyński Palace, Berlin)
• Hiroshige – Famous Places in the Eastern Capital
• Edwin Landseer – A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society
• Ivan Martos – Alexander I Statue in Taganrog
• James Northcote - Chess Players
• Richard Westmacott – "The Copper Horse" (equestrian statue of George III of the United Kingdom, Windsor Great Park)

Births

• February 23 – Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch marine painter (died 1915)
• March 12 – Benjamin Williams Leader (born Benjamin Leader Williams), English landscape painter (died 1923)
• July 3 – Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon, French artist (died 1897)
• July 21 – Martha Maxwell, American naturalist and artist (died 1881)
• July 28 – J. L. K. van Dort, Ceylonese illustrator (died 1898)
• August 14 – Adolf von Becker, Finnish-born painter (died 1909)
• October 26 – Nathaniel Hone the Younger, Irish painter (died 1917)
• December 7 – Joanna Mary Boyce, English painter (died 1861)

Deaths

• January 6 – Ryōkan, Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk poet and calligrapher (born 1758)
• February 2 – Vincenzo Dimech, Maltese sculptor (born 1768)
• February 17 – William Armfield Hobday, English portrait painter and miniaturist (born 1771)
• March 22 – John Warwick Smith, British watercolour landscape painter and illustrator (born 1749)
• April 8 – Domenico Aspari, Italian painter and engraver (born 1746)
• May 8 – Emanuel Thelning, Swedish-born, Finnish painter (born 1767)
• May 24 – James Peale, American miniaturist and still-life painter, a younger brother of Charles Willson Peale (born 1749)
• May 25 – Mather Brown, portrait and historical painter (born 1761)
• June 1 – John Jackson, English portrait painter (born 1778)
• June 12 – Pierre Cartellier, French sculptor (born 1757)
• June 18 – Francesco Manno, Italian painter and architect (born 1754)
• July 11 – Richard Duppa, English writer and draughtsman (born 1770)
• July 13 – James Northcote, English painter (born 1746)
• August 5 – Richard Collins, English chief miniature and enamel painter to George III (born 1755)
• August 17 – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (born 1787)
• August 27 – François Dumont, French painter of portrait miniatures (born 1751)
• September 15 – Christian David Gebauer, Danish animal painter and etcher (born 1777)
• September 17 – Joseph Lange, actor and amateur painter (born 1751)
• November 5 – Johan Frederik Clemens, Danish etcher and printmaker (born 1749)
• November 19 – Carl Conjola, German landscape painter (born 1773)
• December 17 – Amalia von Helvig, German and Swedish artist, writer, translator, and influential intellectual (born 1776)