OVIDIUS NASO, Publius (b. 43 BCE). Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Latin and English… Translated into English by Dryden, Addison, Pope, Gay, and other “eminent hands”. Amsterdam: printed for the Wetsteins and Smith, 1732.
2 volumes in one, large folio (475 x 305 mm). (Spotting and browning throughout). Title–page printed in red and black, engraved allegorical frontispiece, 130 half–page copper–engraved plates by Bernard Picart, Charles Le Brun, and others, woodcut head– and tailpieces and initials (lacks half–title). Full contemporary tree calf, Greek–key roll border, rebacked preserving original spine, spine in 7 compartments with raised bands, red morocco lettering–piece gilt in second compartment, gilt–tooling in others (losses to original spine near head and a few spots in compartments, corners repaired, endsheets renewed).
FIRST PICART EDITION, which is the most beautiful edition of Ovid’s epic of transformation which Brunet says is sought after because of the wonderful plates by Picart. Brunet IV, p. 285; Cohen–De–Ricci, pp. 348–9 (“a magnificent work”); Lowndes III, p. 1744.