By the mid-18th century, Actors of the Comédie-Française belonged to , a nephew of the Parisian merchant and art collector Pierre Crozat; as part of the Crozat collection, the painting was acquired in 1772 for Empress Catherine II of Russia. Since then the painting was among Russian imperial collections in the Hermitage and, later, in the Gatchina Palace, before entering the Hermitage again in the 1920s; as part of the museum's permanent exhibition, it remains on display in the Winter Palace.
