Paul and Virginie
Manufacturer: Royal Worcester Company
Parian porcelain, slip cast, with applied hand-modelled details, sparcely painted in polychrome, and gilded.
Parian porcelain, slip cast, with applied hand-modelled green tinted plant, and flowers, decorated in blue, pale green, yellow, orange, pink, and pale purple, and gold. The figures are supported on a wide oval base with a rounded rocky edge, a small heap of rocks and a plant on the viewer's left end of it, and behind the figures, serving as a support, the lower part of a palm tree. Paul stands on the viewer's left holding his hat filled with polychrome flowers in his right arm. His left rests on the shoulder of Virginie standing beside him holding up her skirt in which there is a pineapple. He wears an open-necked shirt, a short jacket, a sash and breeches. His shirt and sash are patterned with small coloured motifs, and the edges of his garments and hat are edged with gold and red or blue lines. Virginie wears a white short-sleeved dress over a patterned petticoat, and a sash. The dress has a pink bow at the neckline, which is edged with gold. Both figures have bare feet. The underside of the base is open, with a wide flange round the edge, and a small ventilation hole below the palm stump.
History note: Jay Antiques, from whom purchased for £1000 at the Stafford Fair in 1999 by John Edward Trice, MA, LLM (1941-2022); bequeathed by him
Bequeathed by John Edward Trice, 2022
Height: 36.6 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2024) by Trice, John Edward
19th Century, third quarter
Victoria
Production date:
circa
AD 1865
The young man and girl were characters in Jacques-Henri Bernardin de St Pierre's novel 'Paul et Virginie' (1788), which is set on the tropical island of Mauritius, then known as Ile de France. This is indicated by the pineapple held in Virginie's skirt, and the palm stump behind the couple.
Decoration
composed of
metallic oxides
Base
Depth 20 cm
Width 27.3 cm
Details
tinted Parian (porcelain)
Inscription present: crown over a circle
Inscription present: smudgy writing
Accession number: C.13-2024
Primary reference Number: 317585
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Paul and Virginie" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/317585 Accessed: 2025-03-26 13:10:23
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/317585
|title=Paul and Virginie
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-03-26 13:10:23|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-317585
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