"Paul and Virginia"

DateProbably ca. 1825

MediumWatercolor and pencil on wove paper

Dimensions12 15/16" x 17 1/16" (32.9 cm. x 43.3 cm.) unframed sheet; 11 13/16" x 16 1/4" (30.0 cm. x 41.3 cm.) comp.; 15" x 19 3/8" framed.

Credit LineGift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Object number1932.301.3

DescriptionA genre scene set in a lush, tropical forest. At the center of the composition, a boy in striped trousers and a red jacket hands a bird's nest to a girl in white seated on a bank. Behind her, a staw hat hangs in a tree, and a basket sits on the ground near her feet. An excited dog jumps up against her knees, and a goat watches her from left. At right, a black woman wearing a red skirt, a blue headpiece, and a yellow blouse with white sleeves and a blue neckline hangs washing over a line stretched between two trees, a basket sitting at her feet. At far right, a small child dressed in yellow sits on the ground near the woman. Beyond the clothesline, a building and a black male figure appear; the man turns slightly to look at the scene and the viewer.
Label TextThis scene, "Le Repos de Paul et Virginia," copied from one of a series of six French engravings illustrating an episode in L'Histoire de Paul et Virginie, a novel writtten by J. H. Bernadin de Saint-Pierre and first published in Paris in 1788. The scene takes place on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean formerly known as Ile de France. The romantic story of the devotion and eventual separation of the two children became a classic and brought Saint-Pierre to literary fame.
MarkingsWatermark in the lower left corner reads (from the reverse): "(J)Whatman/Turkeymill." The upper line is covered by watercolor and difficult to read.
ProvenanceIsabel Carleton Wilde (Cambridge, MA); John Becker Galleries (New York, NY); Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; given to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1932.