Pierre Crozat
Pierre Crozat (* 1661 or 1665; † 1740) was a very wealthy French tax collector , financier, art collector and patron who supported the painter Jean-Antoine Watteau , among others . Compared to his even richer brother Antoine Crozat , called "the rich", he was - of course wrongly - called "Crozat the poor".
Life
Pierre Crozat was the son of the influential financier and magistrate or "capitouls" Antoine Crozat and his wife Catherine Saporta. He made a career as "trésorier de France" in Montauban and "trésorier des États" in the province of Languedoc . He moved to Paris around 1700 .
In Montmorency , north of Paris, in 1702 he bought the former property of the first court painter Charles Le Brun († 1690) , which had been uninhabited since 1689 . He had the associated petit château renovated and a splendid new palace built in the east of the approximately twenty hectare park by the architect Sylvain Cartault , which was completed in 1709. In 1719, according to the plans of Gilles-Marie Oppenord (1672–1742), the semicircular orangery, which still exists today - in contrast to the castles - was built. In Montmorency, whose park Watteau served as a motif, Crozat resided - apart from his stays in Paris - until his death in 1740.
Furthermore, in 1704 he acquired a large plot of land in Paris on rue de Richelieu at today's house numbers 91 and 93, which stretched to the boulevards and rue Gramond and gave Sylvain Cartault the construction of a luxurious hôtel, which was completed in 1706 particuliers (city residence) in order. The large gallery facing the garden was decorated by Charles de La Fosse , and Crozat's protégé Watteau created the “Four Seasons” for the dining room.
The envisaged art lover and collector received numerous artists , art connoisseurs and critics both in Paris and in his country house in Montmorency . Almost always present regulars were Charles de La Fosse (1640-1716), who died in his house, and Crozat's young protégé Watteau (1684-1721), whom he hosted from 1715-1717. The group of visitors who met every week included the portraitist François de Troy (1645–1730), who, like the host himself, came from Languedoc, and his son Jean François de Troy (1679–1752), the Parisian painter Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746), the collector and patron Watteau Jean de Julienne (1686–1766), the engraver and archaeologist Count von Caylus (1692–1765) and the Parisian engraver, collector and art critic Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694–1774). Other guests were the Parisian sculptor Pierre Le Gros (1666–1719) and the young painters Natoire (1700–1777) and François Boucher (1703–1770). Crozat also received Nicolas Vleughels (1668–1737), who grew up in the Flemish milieu of the Saint-Germain-des-Près district and who had stayed in Venice for a long time, and renowned foreign artists such as the Venetians Sebastiano Ricci (1659–1714), Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (1675–1741) and the pastel painter Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757).
Pierre Crozat died in his city palace on rue Richelieu in 1740.
The Crozat Collection
Crozat's art collection was the largest private collection of its kind in France in the 18th century. He became an art lover and collector at an early age through numerous business trips to Italy; His reputation as a connoisseur was so great that he was appointed as an expert by the Duc d'Orleans in 1715 and bought works of art from Italian collections for the Duke.
Most of the works in the Crozat Collection were of Italian origin, with the Venetian school predominating. Categorized by genre, the collection reveals a preference for history painting , i.e. a traditional taste. The Dutch artists were not nearly as numerous as the Italians, but the Flemish and Dutch schools were quite extensive, each with just under fifty works.
This unique collection was first transferred to Crozat's nephew Louis François Crozat (1691–1750) and after his death Louis-Antoine Crozat , Baron de Thiers (1699–1770) received the art collection, which combined it with his own collection, mainly French and included Dutch artists. He later inherited the picture collection of his younger, childless brother Joseph-Antoines Baron de Tugny (1696–1751) and merged the collections. Louis-Antoine Crozat also continued collecting and enriched the collection again. It was finally bought up in 1772 by the Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great with the support of the philosopher Denis Diderot , so that the Crozat collection is now largely in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg . The graphic collection was already auctioned in 1741, the catalog provided by the engraver and art dealer Pierre-Jean Mariette counts almost 2,000 numbers, with many numbers grouping several sheets - also by different artists.
literature
- Pierre-Jean Mariette: Abecedario . In: Les archives de l'art français . 1857-1858
- Pierre-Jean Mariette: Description of the sommaire des dessins des grands maîtres d'Italie, des Pays Bas et de la France du Cabinet de feu M. Crozat. Avec des reflexions sur la manière de dessiner des principaux peintres . Paris 1741, 1750, 1751; Reprint Geneva, 1973, Minkoff
- Pierre-Jean Mariette: Description of the sommaire des pierres gravées du Cabinet de feu M. Crozat . Paris 1741
- Barbara Scott: Pierre Crozat: a Maecenas of the Règence, in: Apollo 97, 1973, pp. 11-19.
- Oliver T. Banks: Watteau and the North. Studies in the Dutch and Flemish Baroque Influence on French Rococo Painting. New York, London 1977.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Jean de Juliennes was buried in the Paris church of St. Hippolyte in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel .
- ↑ Also written Vleugels or Wleughels
- ↑ Nina Simone Schep Frankowski: Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. Art agent and painting collector in the Frederician Berlin. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-0500-4437-3 , p. 365
- ↑ See Getty Provenance Index, Sale Catalog F-A21.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crozat, Pierre |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Crozat the poor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French financier, art collector and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1661 or 1665 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1740 |