Sunday, February 25, 2024

Ovid's Metamorphoses ... third edition, ripped-off from Tonson ... very poorly illustrated and printed in Ireland in 1727 ... here are the frontispiece pages with their pictorial dedications to a series of high-ranking ladies ... of Volume One, Books One to Seven ... and of Volume Two, Books Eight to Fifteen ... it seems only properly respectful to include such portraits of the ladies as will bring them to life ... BUT THEN, LATER ... mercy me ! ... I had failed to realize i was looking at the cheap rip-off pirate edition ... the original publisher was Jacob Tonson in London ... his printers and engravers and artists did much finer work, as you will see ...


 








VOLUME ONE

https://archive.org/details/ovidsmetamorphos01ovid/mode/2up?view=theater


this is the crude rip-off version printed in Dublin ...


































and this is the original ... printed in London ...
















... and here is the painted lady ...

















































in 1727, the duchess of kingston was Isabella Bentinck 

portraits are hard to find but this is a tentative ID ...




























... and this is a more positive ID ...

https://historicalportraits.com/artists/362-charles-dagar/works/1296-charles-d-agar-portrait-of-isabella-bentinck-1690s/

































lady mary ker, duchess of roxburghe





































possibly lady henrietta pelham holles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Pelham-Holles,_Duchess_of_Newcastle


































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Seymour,_Duchess_of_Somerset_(born_1699)




































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Rich,_Countess_of_Warwick




































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Princess_Royal_and_Princess_of_Orange

































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cowper















VOLUME TWO

https://archive.org/details/ovidsmetamorphos02ovid_0/mode/2up?view=theater


































Lucy Manners, nee Sherard, Duchess of Rutland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Manners,_Duchess_of_Rutland




































lucy pelham holles, countess of lincoln




































Frances Digby, Viscountess Scudamore
















































































i am assuming that MRS walpole was really LADY walpole ...

















































margaret pelham



































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Boyle,_Countess_of_Burlington

























Juliana Boyle, Countess of Ailesbury


































diana de vere, duchess of saint albans



The two rip-off volumes are kept in the Clark Institute Library

https://www.clarkart.edu/library/about-the-library

Ref:  

urn:oclc:record:1050250920
[WorldCat (this item)]


Tonson's 1717 first edition has been scanned in for Google Books so that you can read it all for free


https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Ovid_s_Metamorphoses_in_Fifteen_Books/2mlZAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1