Events from the year 1659 in art.

Events

• Frescoes at the Quirinal Palace in Rome are completed by Pietro da Cortona and his team of artists.

Paintings

Jan Vermeer, Officer and a Laughing Girl

• Peter Lely - A Boy as a Shepherd (approximate date)
• Rembrandt
  • hendrickje as flora
  • Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
  • Moses with Law
  • Self Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar
• Salvator Rosa - Allegory of Fortune
• Adriaen van Ostade - The Fish Market
• Diego Velázquez
  • Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress
  • Portrait of Prince Philip Prospero
• Jan Vermeer - Officer and a Laughing Girl (1657–59)

Births

• January 21 - Adriaen van der Werff, Dutch painter of portraits and erotic, devotional and mythological scenes (died 1722)
• March 4 - Pierre Lepautre, French sculptor (died 1744)
• April 11 - Hendrick van Streeck, Dutch Golden Age painter of church interiors (died 1719)
• July 8 - Justus van Huysum, Dutch Golden Age flower painter (died 1716)
• July 18 - Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter of Catalan origin (died 1743)
• August 1 - Sebastiano Ricci, Italian painter in the Cortonesque style of grand manner fresco painting (died 1734)
• September 29 - Michael Dahl, Swedish portrait painter (died 1743)
• December 12 - Francesco Galli Bibiena, Italian architect/painter (died 1739)
• date unknown
  • Faustino Bocchi, Italian painter, active in Brescia, who specialized in bizarre paintings of dwarfs (died 1742)
  • Niccolò Cassana, Italian painter born in Venice (died 1714)
  • Giovanni Paolo Castelli, Italian painter, active in Rome painting still-life paintings of bowls of fruit and flowers (died 1730)
  • Giovanni Girolamo Frezza, Italian engraver (died 1730)
  • Bernard Lens II, English engraver, pioneer of mezzotint technique, and publisher (died 1725)
  • Krzysztof Lubieniecki, Polish Baroque painter and engraver (died 1729)
  • Giovanni Battista Marmi. Italian painter (died 1686)
  • John Baptist Medina, Flemish-Spanish portrait painter and illustrator of Paradise Lost (died 1710)
  • Thomas van der Wilt, Dutch painter (died 1733)
  • Catharina Ykens, Flemish Baroque painter (died unknown)

Deaths

• January 1 - Giovanni Martinelli, Italian painter of allegorical frescoes (died 1600/1604)
• February - Willem Drost, Dutch Baroque painter and printmaker (born 1633)
• October – Valerio Castello, Italian painter (born 1624)
• date unknown
  • Pedro de Obregón, Spanish painter and printmaker (born 1597)
  • Jacques Fouquier, Flemish landscape painter (born 1591)
  • Filippo Gagliardi, Italian painter, active mainly in Rome (date of birth unknown)
  • Jean Lemaire, French painter (born 1598)
  • Giovanni Pietro Possenti, Italian painter of battle scenes (born 1618)
  • Frans Wouters, Flemish Baroque painter (born 1612)