Joseph Van Praet

Joseph Basile Bernard Van Praet (Bruges, 27 July 1754 – Paris, 5 February 1837) was an Austrian Netherlands-born librarian and scholar active in France.

During the French Revolution he increased the stock to three times its previous amount: the printed collection went from 300 000 to more than a million.

After the fire at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (19–20 August 1794) he managed to obtain part of the stock and also made acquisitions from booksellers and in public sales.

He carried on correspondence to acquire important private libraries for the Bibliothèque nationale such as those of Loménie de Brienne (1792), Panzer (1807), Count MacCarthy (1817).

Van Praet was elected a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 19 March 1830 and died in 1837.