Pierre Crozat
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Pierre Crozat (1661 – 1740) was a French art collector and brother of Antoine Crozat.
Crozat was born in Toulouse, France, the son of peasants. He and his brother Antoine were opportunistic self-made men, rising from obscurity to become two of the wealthiest merchants in France. He was one of the most prominent French financiers and collectors, becoming the treasurer to the king in Paris, and gradually acquiring a magnificent collection of pictures and objets d'art. He was the principal patron of Antoine Watteau and other early Rococo artists.
Between 1729 and 1742, a finely illustrated, two-volume work was published, known as the Cabinet Crozat, including some of the finest pictures in French collections.
Most of Crozat's treasures were inherited by his nephews, Louis François (d. 1750), Joseph Antoine (d. 1750), and Louis Antoine (d. 1770), who added to them. They were dispersed after their deaths; the collection of Louis Antoine Crozat was bought, through Denis Diderot, by Catherine II of Russia and went to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
