Events from the year 1688 in art.

Events

• Matthias Steinl becomes ivory engraver at the imperial court in Vienna.
• The Equestrian statue of Christian V by French sculptor Abraham-César Lamoureux is unveiled on Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen.

Paintings

van Mieris – A Seated Man, private collection

• René-Antoine Houasse – Minerva teaching the Rhodians sculpture (Palace of Versailles)
• Willem van de Velde the Younger – The Fleet at Sea
• Willem van Mieris – A Seated Man

Births

• March 16 – Anna Maria Garthwaite, English textile designer (died 1763)
• April 15 – Johann Georg Bergmüller, Bavarian painter of frescoes, of the Baroque (died 1762)
• April 28 – Giacomo Boni, Italian painter of the late-Baroque period (died 1766)
• May 6 – Charles Parrocel, French painter and engraver and a specialist in battle and hunt paintings (died 1752)
• July 19 – Giuseppe Castiglione, Italian Jesuit Brother, missionary in China, painter at the imperial court (died 1766)
• September 6 – Antonio Corradini, Venetian Rococo sculptor (died 1752)
• September 12 – Ferdinand Brokoff, Bohemian sculptor (died 1731)
• October 29 – Amalia Pachelbel, German painter and engraver (died 1723)
• November 21 – Antonio Visentini, Italian designer, painter and engraver (died 1782)
• date unknown
  • Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Elder, French line-engraver (died 1754)
  • François Dumont, French sculptor (died 1726)
  • Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, Italian quadratura painter (died 1774)
  • José de Ibarra, Mexican painter (died 1756)
  • Ercole Graziani the Younger, Italian painter (died 1765)
  • Edme Jeaurat, French engraver (died 1738)
  • Louis August le Clerc, French-born sculptor (died 1771)
  • François Lemoyne, French Rococo painter (died 1737)
  • Francesco Maria Schiaffino, Italian sculptor (died 1763)
  • Gao Xiang, Qing Chinese painter, and one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou (died 1753)

Deaths

• February 11 – Cesare Gennari, Italian painter (born 1641)
• March 9 – Claude Mellan, French engraver and painter (born 1598)
• April 3 – Cosimo Fancelli, Italian sculptor (born 1620)
• October – Philip de Koninck, Dutch landscape painter (born 1619)
• October 13 – Pedro de Mena, Spanish sculptor (born 1628)
• October 14 – Joachim von Sandrart, German art-historian and painter (born 1606)
• December 8 – Thomas Flatman, English poet and miniature painter (born 1635)
• date unknown
  • Giovanni Battista Benaschi, Italian painter and engraver active in the late-Renaissance period (born 1636)
  • Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra, Spanish painter (born 1638)
  • Carlo Cane, Italian painter (born 1618)