Bernard Picart (June 11, 1673 – May 8, 1733), was a French
engraver, son of Etienne Picart, also an engraver. He was born in
Paris and died in Amsterdam. He moved to Antwerp in 1696, and then
spent a year in Amsterdam before returning to France at the end of
1698. After his wife died in 1708, he moved to Amsterdam in 1711
(later being joined by his father), where he became a Protestant
convert and married again. Most of his work was book-illustrations.
His most famous work is Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous
les peuples du monde, appearing from 1723 to 1743. Jonathan I.
Israel calls Cérémonies "an immense effort to record the religious
rituals and beliefs of the world in all their diversity as
objectively and authentically as possible". Although Picart had
never left Europe, he relied on accounts by those who had and had
access to a collection of Indian sculpture. The original French
edition of Cérémonies comprises ten volumes of text and
engravings.English, Dutch and German editions also exist.