1870 in art

June 28 – Claude Monet marries his mistress and model Camille Doncieux in Paris; Gustave Courbet is a witness.
July – Franco-Prussian War breaks out: Monet, Pissarro, Daubigny and the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel flee to London; Cézanne and his mistress, Marie-Hortense Fiquet, leave Paris for L'Estaque (on the French Riviera) where he predominantly paints landscapes. In August, Frédéric Bazille joins a Zouave regiment. In September the Dutch painter Lourens Alma Tadema moves permanently to London where he adopts the name Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Édouard Manet and Louis Edmond Duranty fight a duel at Café Guerbois, Paris.
Russian industrialist and patron of the arts Savva Mamontov acquires the Abramtsevo Colony and hosts a group of traditionalist artists there.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems are published,^[1] exhumed from Elizabeth Siddal's grave.
Daoud Corm goes to Rome to study under Roberto Bompiani at the Accademia di San Luca.

Births

January 1 – Louis Vauxcelles, French Jewish art critic (died 1943)
January 11 – Alexander Stirling Calder, American sculptor (died 1945)
February 5 – C. E. Brock, English painter and illustrator (died 1938)
March 13 – William Glackens, American painter (died 1938)
June 22 – Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, Italian-born painter and art teacher (died 1955)
July 21 – Emil Orlík, Czech-born painter and lithographer (died 1932)
July 25 – Maxfield Parrish, American painter and illustrator (died 1966)
November 18 – Franz Metzner, German sculptor (died 1919)
November 25 – Maurice Denis, French painter and decorative artist (died 1943)
December 23 – John Marin, American painter (died 1953)
date unknown – Arthur Diehl, English-born landscape painter (died 1929)

January 17 – Alexander Anderson, American illustrator (born 1775)
January 27 – Johannes Flintoe, Danish-Norwegian painter of Norwegian landscapes (born 1787)
February 21 – Robert Jefferson Bingham, English-born photographer (born 1824 or 1825)
March 19 – William Egley, English miniature painter (born 1798)
April 25 – Daniel Maclise, Irish-born painter (born 1806)
May 17 – David Octavius Hill, Scottish painter and pioneer photographer (born 1802)
July 13 – Christian Albrecht Jensen, Danish painter (born 1792)
August 25 – Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, English francophile art collector (born 1800)
November 7 – Cornelia Aletta van Hulst, Dutch painter (born 1797)
November 28 – Frédéric Bazille, French Impressionist painter (born 1841) (killed in action)
December 9
- Max Emanuel Ainmiller, German glass painter (born 1807)
- Patrick MacDowell, Irish sculptor from Belfast (born 1799)
December 12 – Martin Cregan, Irish portrait painter (born 1788)
Undated – Achille Leonardi, Italian genre painter (born 1800)

Events