Antoine Crozat

Antoine Crozat, Marquis du Châtel (c. 1655 – 7 June 1738),[1] French founder of an immense fortune, was the first proprietary owner of French Louisiana, from 1712 to 1717.

Antoine Crozat, marquis du Châtel

Career

Antoine Crozat and his brother Pierre Crozat were born in Toulouse, France, the sons of a wealthy banking family. They moved to Paris around 1700 and rose from obscurity to become two of the wealthiest financiers of France.[2] By way of lending money to the government, Antoine was ennobled as the Marquis du Châtel, a title he transmitted to his eldest son Louis-François. He became a financial counselor to Louis XIV. He invested in the Guinea Company and the Asiento Company, two lucrative overseas franchises. The king eventually offered him a 15‑year trade monopoly in Louisiana. The monopoly was transferred to the Scottish businessman John Law in 1717.[3]

Personal life

Portrait of Mme Crozat by Joseph Aved (exhibited at the Salon of 1741), Montpellier, Musée Fabre

In 1690 Antoine Crozat married Marguerite Legendre (1670–1742). They had four children:

• Louis-François Crozat, Marquis du Châtel (1691–1750), who inherited his uncle Pierre's collection of paintings and his hôtel in the Rue de Richelieu[4]
• Marie Anne (1695–1729), who married the comte d'Évreux, Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, son of Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne and Marie Anne Mancini
• Joseph-Antoine Crozat, Marquis de Thugny (1696–1751)[4]
• Louis-Antoine Crozat, Baron de Thiers (1699-1770), whose collection of paintings, inherited from his eldest brother Louis-François and his other brother Joseph-Antoine (mostly Dutch pictures), was purchased after his death for the collection of Catherine II of Russia, through Denis Diderot. Most now hang in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, although a few were sold in the 1920s and 1930s by the Soviet authorities for hard currency, including a dozen purchased by Andrew Mellon, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.[4]

In 1708 Antoine Crozat built a notable hôtel particulier on the Place Vendôme to the designs of the architect Pierre Bullet. It became part of the Hôtel Ritz Paris in 1910.[5]

Notes

1. "Crozat, Antoine", Notice de personne, BnF.
2. Leclair 1996, p. 208.
3. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 1991, vol. 29, p. 330.
4. Leclair 1996, p. 209.
5. Gady 2008, p. 309.

Bibliography

• Gady, Alexandre (2008). Les Hôtels particuliers de Paris du Moyen Âge à la Belle Époque. Paris: Parigramme. ISBN 9782840962137.
• Leclair, Anne (1996). "Crozat family", vol. 8. pp. 208–210, in The Dictionary of Art (34 vols.), edited by Jane Turner. New York: Grove. ISBN 9781884446009. Also at Oxford Art Online, subscription required.