Les Amores (1954, the artist's proof copy, and with signed bookplate)

Ovid's verse in prose, limited edition, with illustrations by Paul-Emile Becat

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition thus. Limited to 997 copies, but this one is marked "Exemplaire D'Artiste H.C." [Hors Commerce] and thus was a proof intended for the artist and produced outside the numbered run. Quarter leather, top edge gilt, fore-edge untrimmed. 23 × 17.5cm, 189pp. French text.

From the library of noted collector Gordon R Smith, with his Ex Erotica bookplate by Paolo Rovegno, and signed and numbered by Rovegno in pencil. The Ex Erotica showing a rather mischievous naked devil sitting over naked lady reclining on a settee.

Ovid's elegiac love poems here presented in prose, Amores lays bare the intrigues and appetites of high society in the imperial capital at the time of Caesar Augustus. Clandestine sex, orgies and entertainments, fashion and violence, are among the subjects Ovid explores.

This edition illustrated with twelve drypoint plates by Paul-Emile Becat, with the original covers and spine bound in. The images are mildly erotic with some of nudity.

Condition

Whilst the contents are in very good condition, with all plates present and clean pages, the leather to the spine is starting to peel from the spine ends and with some wear, as it is with the leather corners. However, with this being the artist's copy and with the bookplate, a decent and rare copy.