Beschreibung:

AESOP (ca 620-560 B.C.). The Fabled Paraphras'd in Verse, and adorn'd with Sculpture by John Ogilby . London: Thomas Warren for Andrew Crook, 1651.
AESOP (ca 620-560 B.C.). The Fabled Paraphras'd in Verse, and adorn'd with Sculpture by John Ogilby . London: Thomas Warren for Andrew Crook, 1651. 4 o (209 x 150 mm). Engraved additional title with portrait, engraved frontispiece and 80 engraved plates by Hollar, Stoop and Barlow after Francis Cleyn ALL COLORED AND ILLUMINATED WITH GOLD IN A CONTEMPORARY HAND. (Small repair on frontispiece fore-margin slightly affecting image, horizontal tear crossing text on G4, some minor soiling and browning.) Contemporary English calf with coat-of-arms blind-blocked on sides (worn and rebacked). Provenance : William Amherst (arms on binding, his signature on frontispiece, and purchase note dated 1653 on frontispiece recto indicating he paid 10 shillings for the book); acquired from Laurence Witten, 1966. FIRST EDITION, HAND-COLORED COPY, of Ogilby's translation with outstanding illustrations of these 81 fables (numbered 1-13, 14/15 and 16-81). "To call these versions paraphrases is misleading... they are original treatments of familiar themes. Ogilby gives free play to his imagination as he retells the fables with so many amplifications of homely detail and classical allusions that what would ordinarily have been eighty-one pages or a little more becomes two hundred and thirty-six." (E. Hodnett, Francis Barlow First Master of English Book Illustration , p. 79). EXTREMELY RARE IN CONTEMPORARY COLOR: according to American Book Prices Current no copies in contemorary color have appeared at auction in at least the past forty years. Wing A-689.