Le port Henri IV, Paris

Gustave LOISEAU
(1865-1935)

Le port Henri IV, Paris

oil on canvas
21 3/8 x 25½ in. (54 x 65 cm.)
signed 'G Loiseau' (lower right)
Painted in 1918

PROVENANCE:
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris.
Galerie Durand Ruel et Cie., Paris.
Wildenstein & Co., London.
Anon. (acquired in 1954); sale, Sotheby's, London, March 27, 1985, lot 136.
Private Collection, New York
sale, Christie’s, New York, May 7, 2008, lot 311 ($ 61,000)
Private Collection, Atlanta, GA
Private Collection, Phoenix, AZ


Gustave Loiseau (1865-1935)

Gustave Loiseau was fascinated by the Seine, the river at the heart of French national consciousness, which rises north-west of Dijon in Burgundy and flows majestically through Paris before reaching the sea at Le Havre. It is at the center of his art, painted in many moods and seasons, leading to Loiseau’s being dubbed ‘the historiographer of the Seine.’

Loiseau was one of the most poetic and sensitive of the Post-Impressionists, influenced by Sisley, Pissarro, Corot, and briefly advised by Gauguin. Although he experimented with Pointillism, he developed a personal style grounded in direct observation of nature, often compared to Monet. Born in Paris, he discovered landscape painting in Pontoise and later studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs and with Fernand Quignon. He traveled widely—particularly to Pont-Aven, Normandy, and Pontoise—absorbing influences from the Pont-Aven School while maintaining an individual approach. A member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, he gained financial independence through an agreement with Durand-Ruel, enabling extensive travel and sustained artistic production until his death in Paris in 1935.

The work of Gustave Loiseau is represented in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Marubeni Collection, Japan; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City