Illustrated by Picart, 1732

OVID (46 BCE-17/18 CE). Ovid's Metamorphoses, in Latin and English. Amsterdam: for Wetsteins and Smith, 1732.

A deluxe bilingual edition of Ovid's great epic, with illustrations after Bernard Picart. The text is a blend of illustrious translator-poets and commentators, taken from a French edition edited by the Abbott Banier and published in Paris the same year. Cohen-de Ricci 768; see Ray p. 7 and Stuart Gillespie and Robert Cummings, "A Bibliography of Ovidian Translations and Imitations in English," in Translation and Literature 13 (2004), pp. 207-218.

Two volumes in one, folio (464 x 302mm). Half title in vol. 1, title pages for both vols printed in red and black with engraved vignette, engraved frontispiece, engravings after B. Picart in text (occasional light foxing, a few sheets toned). Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, edges red (worn at extremities, a few scrapes to boards). Provenance: Francisco Bayley (inscription on half title) – Lucien Allienne (bookplate, dated 1950).