[Rarebooks] fa: VIRGIL: OPERA - Printed & Engraved by JOHN PINE - 1755

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, October 30. No reserve. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/shwwe357

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Virgil; John Pine, illustrator & publisher:] Publii Virgilii Maronis Opera. Vol.I [all published]. Londini [London]: Editit, aerique tabulas incidit, Johannes Pine, Bluemantle, Regiae Majestatis Sigillorum Sculptor Capitalis, etc., MDCCLV [1755]. First edition thus; 8vo (22.5 cm), in later, but not recent, navy blue straight-grained morocco tooled in gilt; marbled endpapers, all page edges gilt; [2], xv, [1], 49, [4], 52-95, [3], 97-144, [6] pp. (erratic pagination as issued); two engraved title-pages, engraved plates (one folding), vignettes, decorations and initials throughout. ESTC T139214.

Includes the Bucolics and Georgics, as well as "P. Virgilii Maronis historia descripta per consules, a. Carolo Ruaeo, S.J." The Georgics has a separate title-page, but the pagination is continuous. Though designated "Vol. I," this is the only volume that was ever published, as the printer-engraver John Pine died in the following year. A later edition in two volumes, edited by his son, the painter Robert Edge Pine, appeared in 1774.

A superb production from John Pine (1690-1756), an engraver "of great precision and excellence" (DNB) and a close friend and colleague of Hogarth, who executed at least two portraits of him. Pine, who may have been black and/or of African ancestry, made a name for himself with an earlier two-volume edition of Horace (1733-37), his only other significant endeavor in the book arts. This edition of his Virgil is much rarer: a search of ESTC locates only 3 copies in libraries in the UK and 8 in the U.S.

Internally fine, in a once-fine morocco binding deserving of restoration. Front board detached, wear to the edges, corners, joints and spine head; light age-toning to the leaves, some offsetting from the plates, a few occasional small spots, but otherwise the contents are very clean and fresh, firmly bound. Rear flyleaf with the faint blindstamp of Neatham Hill Library (no other library markings); front (blank) flyleaf with a previous owner's extensive pencilled bibliographic notes.