Events from the year 1771 in art.

• Limoges porcelain manufacture established in France.

• Cristóbal de Aguilar – Manuel de Amat y Junient as Protector of the Monastery of the Nazarene
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin – Self-portrait in spectacles (pastel)
• Louis-Bernard Coclers – Interior of a Foundry
• John Singleton Copley
  • Daniel Crommelin Verplanck (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
  • Ezekiel Goldthwait and Mrs. Ezekiel Goldthwait (Elizabeth Lewis) (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
• Jacques-Louis David – Minerva Fighting Mars (Combat de Mars contre Minerve)
• Anton Graff
  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  • Moses Mendelssohn
• Jean-Antoine Houdon – Portrait bust of Diderot
• John Hamilton Mortimer – Combined portrait of Dr Daniel Solander, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain James Cook, Dr John Hawkesworth and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
• Alexander Roslin – King Gustav III of Sweden and his Brothers
• Claude Joseph Vernet – Clair de lune ("moonlight")
• Francis Wheatley – Scene from Twelfth Night
• Joseph Wright of Derby^[1]
  • The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers (original version)
  • The Blacksmith's Shop (two versions)

• March 16 – Antoine-Jean Gros, French painter (died 1835)
• April 13 – Jakob Wilhelm Roux, German draughtsman and painter (died 1830)
• May 2 – John Henning, Scottish sculptor and medallist (died 1851)
• May 14 – Thomas Wedgwood, pioneer photographer (died 1805)
• November 6
  • Alois Senefelder, inventor of lithography (died 1834)
  • Jovan Pačić, Serbian painter and poet (died 1849)
• November 20 – Bartolomeo Pinelli, Italian illustrator and engraver (died 1835)
• December 16 – Jean Broc, painter (died 1850)
• date unknown
  • Nikolai Ivanovich Argunov, painter and academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (died 1829)
  • John Heaviside Clark, Scottish aquatint engraver and painter of seascapes and landscapes (died 1863)
  • Samuel Elmgren, Finnish painter (died 1834)
  • John Eyre, Australian painter and engraver (died 1812)
  • William Armfield Hobday, English portrait painter and miniaturist (died 1831)
  • Thomas Richmond, English miniature-painter (died 1837)
  • Kazimierz Wojniakowski, Polish painter (died 1812)

• March 8 – Louis August le Clerc, French-born sculptor (born 1688)
• March 20 – Louis-Michel van Loo, French painter (born 1707)
• April 14 – Laurent Cars, French designer and engraver (born 1699)
• May 11 – Franz Edmund Weirotter, Austrian landscape painter (born 1733)
• September 9 – Robert Wood, British engraver gentleman and politician (born 1717)
• September 14 – Louis de Moni, Dutch genre painter (born 1698)
• date unknown
  • John Baker, English flower painter (born 1726)
  • George Bickham the Younger, English etcher, engraver, printseller, and one of the first English caricaturists (born 1706)
  • Jean Baptiste Claude Chatelain, French engraver (born 1710)
  • Charles Exshaw, Irish painter and engraver (born unknown)
  • Johan Georg Geitel, Finnish painter (born 1683)
  • Ding Guanpeng, Chinese painter in Qing Dynasty (date of birth unknown)
  • Giuseppe Marchesi, Italian painter active mainly in Bologna (born 1699)
  • Felice Polanzani, Italian engraver (born 1700)
  • Johann Preissler, German engraver (born 1698)
  • Andrea Soldi, Italian portrait painter working in London (born 1703)
• probable – Anton Giuseppe Barbazza, Italian painter and engraver of the Baroque period (born 1720)