Loppé, an artist specialising in this subject, was not only a painter but an accomplished Alpinist and a photographer who spent much of his time in the Alps walking and painting the most dramatic scenes in Zermatt, Grindelwald and above all Chamonix.
Every summer he based himself in the alps creating panoramic canvases designed to wow his audience of fellow alpine enthusiasts in his specially constructed Chamonix studio and gallery displaying around 60 examples of his work.
This studio/gallery was inherited by his granddaughter and became the Musée Loppé until her death in 1978 when it was turned into a house.
Loppé’s clientele were predominantly tourists who were fascinated by the Alpine regions, especially the English but also Americans, Austrians, Germans and Swiss. He also showed his work at exhibitions in London and the two paintings offered at Artcurial had both been exhibited at the Conduit Street Gallery in 1874.
Both were conceived on a grand scale. One depicting the Matterhorn viewed from the Gornergrat, signed and dated April 1874, measured 12ft 10in x 9ft 7in (3.9 x 2.9m).
The other, shown here, was a dramatic view of the Grands Charmoz at Chamonix with the Mer de Glace (glacier) in the foreground, signed and dated G Loppé 1874, which measured 7ft 8in x 11ft 5in (2.3 x 3.4m).
Both were rediscoveries, found still rolled up in their wooden cases where they had been since the 1874 London exhibition.
Although records show that Loppé produced around 20 giant-sized Alpine canvases, only around 10 are known today as several were destroyed in a fire at the Musée Alpin de Chamonix where they were on loan.
The Matterhorn painting, guided at €300,000-400,000, failed to find a buyer at the auction but the Chamonix glacier painting sold for €320,000 (£271,185), pre-empted by the Musée Alpin de Chamonix.
The price was just under what must have been a fairly punchy €350,000-450,000 estimate since it still represents a new auction record for the artist.
