Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky

Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (21 November 1710 – 9 August 1775) was a Prussian merchant with a successful trade in trinkets, silk, taft, porcelain, grain and bills of exchange. Moreover, he acted as a diplomat and important art dealer. His paintings formed the basis and the beginning of the collection in the Hermitage Museum. Gotzkowsky died impoverished and having left behind an autobiography: Geschichte eines patriotischen Kaufmanns (1768), which was translated into French and reprinted three times in the 18th century.