Ovid | Les metamorphoses. Amsterdam, 1732, with fine illustrations by Bernard Picart, the Signet Library copy - photo 1
Ovid | Les metamorphoses. Amsterdam, 1732, with fine illustrations by Bernard Picart, the Signet Library copy - photo 2
Ovid | Les metamorphoses. Amsterdam, 1732, with fine illustrations by Bernard Picart, the Signet Library copy - photo 3

Ovid | Les metamorphoses. Amsterdam, 1732, with fine illustrations by Bernard Picart, the Signet Library copy

Lot 63
28.11.2023 14:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 3 000
AuctioneerSotheby´s
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1076586
Lot 63 | Ovid | Les metamorphoses. Amsterdam, 1732, with fine illustrations by Bernard Picart, the Signet Library copy
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Publius Ovidius Naso

Les metamorphoses d’Ovide, en latin, traduites en françois, avec des remarques, et des explications historiques (translated by Abbé Banier). Amsterdam: R. & J. Wetstein & G. Smith, 1732

FIRST EDITION of this translation, 2 volumes bound in one, folio (480 x 308mm.), text in French and Latin, titles with engraved vignettes, 131 SUPERB ENGRAVINGS, comprising a frontispiece by Picart, 3 plates with 2 engravings each, and 124 large images in the text after Bernard Picart and others engraved by Bouche, Folkema, and others, CONTEMPORARY CRIMSON MOROCCO GILT, covers bordered by thick and thin rules, daisy cornerpieces, seal of The Society of Writers to the Signet at centre, spines gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges occasional slight browning

A good copy of a celebrated illustrated book of the eighteenth-century. According to Fürstenberg, “the magnificent Amsterdam Ovid edition of 1732” establishes Picart as the artist who marks the transition “from the forerunners of copperplate illustration to the masters”. Ray considers Picart “the outstanding professional illustrator of the first third of the eighteenth century”, and cites “Metamorphoses” as one of the artist’s chief and most desirable works, showcasing his “stately designs, replete with allegorical and mythological trappings”.

Bernard Picart (1673-1733) was born in Paris, where he learned engraving from his father, Etienne, and from Sébastian Le Clerc. Ray tells us that “he early acquired a reputation both as an artist and engraver”. Picart moved to the busy publishing city of Amsterdam sometime before 1712, and established himself as both as print seller and as an illustrator/engraver; he also started a school for engravers c.1718, where he could train the artists for his atelier. Picart designed and engraved an impressive body of illustrations for Dutch printers at a time when, according to Ray, “designs for the finest illustrated books were typically drawn by leading painters. He worked for the most part in the fading baroque tradition, but there are elements in his immense production which herald the new age [of Rococo design]”.

The famous tales of transformation making up the text here provide a rich source of inspiration to our transformational artist, who often chooses to depict his subjects mid-transition, as they mutate from nymph to laurel tree or from hunter to stag. Dutch and English editions of this work were issued the same year, but this French edition has the distinction of containing the first impressions of the plates.
Artist:Ovidius (43 BC - 18)
Auction house category:Prints, graphics, books
Address of auction Sotheby´s
34-35 New Bond Street
W1A 2AA London
United Kingdom
Preview
28.11.2023
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