c. 1795-1820s late 18th to early 19th century, Painted Ceramic Plaque Depicting "Paul et Virginie Retrouves par Domingue," After the famous scene by Charles-Melchior Descourtis and Jean-Frederic Schall, Ornate Gilt Wood Framed, Choice Extremely Fine+.
This colorful polychrome enamel painted on a white ceramic plaque measuring 8 x 6.25 Inches is fully framed to 13.5 x 10.25 Inches in excellent condition. The scene depicts a narrative scene set along a wooded path where a young woman seated on the ground beside a young man kneeling at her side with his dog and their walking sticks, apparently hiking are approached by a running Black man, his arms outstretched and having a woven pack on his back shown in panicked flight running away from unseen pursuers.

This scene corresponds to "Paul et Virginie retrouves par Domingue" ("Paul and Virginie Found by Domingue"), one of a set of six color aquatint and etched plates produced between 1795 and 1797 by the engraver Charles-Melchior Descourtis (1753-1820), after original paintings by the artist Jean-Frederic Schall (1752-1825), illustrating scenes from Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's celebrated 1788 novel “Paul et Virginie”.

"Paul et Virginie Retrouves par Domingue" depicts a specific episode from Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's 1788 novel. Shortly after the children have interceded to save a Runaway Slave woman from punishment, Paul and Virginie become lost in the forest during a storm. Frightened, they pray together, and Virginie recognizes the bark of FidPROBLEM: èle, the family dog. FidPROBLEM: èle bounds to them, licking their faces joyfully, and moments later Domingue, the elderly Black Enslaved Servant of Paul's mother, Marguerite, rushes in with arms outstretched, weeping with relief at having found the two children safe. He explains that he tracked them by having FidPROBLEM: èle sniff their old clothes and follow the scent through the woods to the RiviPROBLEM: ère Noire.

The Descourtis and Schall series is a standard reference within 18th-century French color printmaking, catalogued as Portalis & Beraldi 8, with impressions held in institutional collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery. A small brass plaque affixed to the frame erroneously identifies the scene as "In a Derbyshire Lane, by G. Turner," an attribution which does not correspond to the subject actually depicted. The composition, figures, and narrative align instead with the Descourtis and Schall Paul et Virginie series described above, and the frame's inscribed title and attribution should accordingly be disregarded as erroneous. Overall, a wonderful depiction in superb quality ready to hang on display.

Provenance: Collection of Rex Stark.
The scene on this plaque derives from Paul et Virginie, a novel by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, first published in 1788. Set on the island of Mauritius (then the PROBLEM: Île de France) under French colonial rule, the novel tells the story of two childhood companions, Paul and Virginie, raised together in isolation from society amid the island's natural beauty.

Written on the eve of the French Revolution, the novel was enormously popular and is considered Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's finest work, anticipating many of the sentimental and naturalistic impulses of the coming Romantic movement.

Between 1795 and 1797, the French printmaker Charles-Melchior Descourtis (1753-1820) produced a set of six color aquatint and etching plates after paintings by Jean-Frederic Schall (1752-1825), illustrating key episodes from the novel. The scene depicted on this plaque, Paul et Virginie retrouves par Domingue, shows the moment when Domingue, the enslaved servant of Virginie's family, searching the island's wilderness with his dog Fidele, finally locates the two missing children, a moment of relief and reunion within the novel's broader arc toward tragedy.

The Descourtis and Schall series remains a standard reference point in the study of 18th-century French color printmaking, catalogued as Portalis & Beraldi 8, with impressions preserved today in institutional collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery.