March: he visits his family in Nice. 

March-April: at the American Society of American Artists, New York, he exhibits a small portrait of Edward Burckhardt (n/a) and Head of Ana-Capri Girl (1878).

April: two Venetian interiors shown at the second exhibition of the Cercle des arts liberaux on the raue Vicienne.

May, at the annual Salon in Paris, he shows the two portraits of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron (1879), Mme. Subercaseaux, and two Venetian watercolors, both entitled de Vebuse. He wins a second-class medal for Mme. Subercaseaux (1880) and he's hors de concours (out of competition for medals, except the medaille d'honneur -- first place). 

He meets the American painter William Merrit Chase.
Footnote 2

June: he's in London to sees his family off to the United States. While there, he paints a sketch of Vernon Lee. The painting was done as a gift. He also paints his sister Violet possibly during this time.

By August he's back in Paris and  begins a portrait of Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi (who had somewhat of a reputation as being a lady's man and reportedly had an affair with  Madame Gautreau Madame X, 1884).

He now paints the children of the Pailleron's who he painted parents both in 1879.

November: Based from his Spanish trips, he starts work on El Jaleo with anticipation of the following year's Salon exhibition.
 

A romance is rumored between Sargent and Charlotte Louise Burckhardt which supposedly started the previous summer (about the time Sargent painted her father).

In May exhibits Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt) and  El Jaleo at the Salon, Paris. Both painting receive widespread attention in the press and Sargent is a rising star.  At the Royal Academy, London, he exhibits for the first time and shows  Dr. Pozzi (1881). And at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, he shows two Venetian interiors and a 'study'. Vernon Lee writes to her mother about the Royal Academy.
 

June: goes to Paris where he paints  friends and then on to Edouard Pailleron Le monde ou Pon s'emuie at the Comedie Francaise with his sister Emily and Vernon Lee. 

In August he visits Ralph Curtis and his family in Venice and paints Mrs. Daniel Sargent Curtis (Ralph's mother). Sargent's father was a cousin of Daniel Curtis.

The Curtises lived for part of the year in the Palazzo Barbaro (a Gothic palace located on the Grand Canal).

October: he travels to Florence visiting the Pagets (Vernon Lee's parents), Siena, and Rome.

The painting El Jaleo travels to New York and is shown at the Schwab Gallery then on to Boston for show.

In December, after the Curtises had left Venice and Sargent had moved to new quarters, he writes to Mrs. Curtis: "If you stay there late enough you will perhaps see how curious Venice looks with the snow clinging to the roofs and balconies, with the dull sky and canals of a dull opaque green, not unlike pea soup, con rispetto, and very different from the julienne of the Grand Canal in Summer."
Footnote 1
 

Sometime during his stay in Venice, he paints more Venetian scenes.
 
 

Upon his return from Venice, he begins his painting of Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.