La Hire or La Hyre, Laurent de, 1606-56, French painter. He produced many portraits and historical paintings, a few romantic landscapes, important decorative works for Richelieu, Pierre Séguier, and others, and tapestry designs for the Gobelins. His paintings reflect the influence of Vouet, Poussin, and Claude. His Pope Nicolas V before St. Francis (1630) and St. Peter Healing the Sick are both in the Louvre.

La Hire, c.1390-c.1443, French commander in the Hundred Years War, whose real name was Étienne de Vignoles or Vignolles. He entered (1418) the service of the dauphin (later King Charles VII) and was a loyal companion of Joan of Arc, with whom he helped to defeat (1429) the English at Orléans and Patay. For a time La Hire ravaged N France at the head of a marauding band of soldiers, but in 1437 he resumed the fight against the English.