Crozat, Pierre

Crozat, Pierre (1661-1740), French art collector, was born at Toulouse, one of a family who were prominent French financiers and collectors. He became treasurer to the king in Paris, and gradually acquired a magnificent collection of pictures and objets d’art. Between 1729 and 1742 a finely illustrated work was published in two volumes, known as the Cabinet Crozat, including the finest pictures in French collections. Most of his own treasures descended to his nephews, Louis François (d. 1750), Joseph Antoine (d. 1750), and Louis Antoine (d. 1770), and were augmented by them, being dispersed after their deaths; the collection of Louis Antoine Crozat went to St Petersburg.