Luigi Loir

Luigi Loir, born Luigi Aloys-Francois-Joseph Loir, was born in 1845 in Goritz, then part of the Austrian Empire, to French parents attached to the exiled Bourbon court. Sources differ on the exact day, giving either 22 December or 22 January 1845; only the year is settled with confidence. In 1847 his family moved with the Bourbons to the Duchy of Parma, where Loir began formal art study at the local Ecole des Beaux-Arts around 1853.

He moved to Paris around 1863 and entered the studio of the painter and set designer Jean Amable Amedee Pastelot, completing his training and making his Paris Salon debut in 1865. Loir went on to design murals and to work in theatrical scenery before establishing himself as a painter of Parisian street and river scenes. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Francais nearly every year from 1865 into the 1910s, winning a third class medal in 1879 and a second class medal that dealer sources date variously to 1886 or 1889. In 1889 he also won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur in 1898 and later sat on the jury of the Societe des Arts Decoratifs. He died on 9 February 1916 in Paris.

Loir was closely identified in his own lifetime with the pictorial life of Paris itself. The poet and critic Theodore de Banville is quoted, in a line reproduced by Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, contrasting him with a peer, that Jean Beraud painted the Parisians of Paris and Luigi Loir the Paris of Parisians. Dealers and historians have long described his output as a genre unto itself, built on close observation of snow, dusk, and the working city rather than on fashionable spectacle, and his official honors, Salon medals, a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, and the Legion d'honneur in 1898, reflect that standing within the French art establishment of his time.

Loir's auction footprint is thin, and the available data is inconsistent. The most fully documented sale identified, with work, price, house, and date all confirmed, is Parisian Street Scene, an oil on panel that sold for USD 14,340 at Heritage Auctions on 17 May 2011. Secondary market databases report higher results that are less completely documented: Place de la Bastille reportedly realized USD 102,000 in a New York sale, though the auction house and exact date are not given in the available record; A View of Roscoff, Brittany reportedly realized GBP 15,000 at Sotheby's London in June 2020, and Fete foraine reportedly realized USD 10,625 at Christie's New York online, also in June 2020, though neither summary source gives the exact day of sale. No fully verified all time auction high can be stated with confidence from the sources reviewed.

No catalogue raisonne of Loir's work has been identified, so provenance, Salon exhibition records, and the connoisseurship of specialist dealers in nineteenth century French painting carry more weight in authentication. His paintings sit in museum collections including the Musee du Louvre and Petit Palais in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which is a stronger signal of durability than his auction history. That auction history is comparatively sparse and inconsistently documented, so any single reported price, including the higher figures cited for Place de la Bastille, A View of Roscoff, Brittany, and Fete foraine, should be treated with caution until each can be corroborated with a complete auction house, location, and exact date. Works are also catalogued and signed under the inverted name Loir Luigi, which is worth checking when researching provenance.