Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera. HORACE.

First edition, second printing, in a fine contemporary Parisian binding. A tour de force of bookmaking, Pine's Horace is entirely engraved, both text and illustration, and liberally supplied with initials, head- and tailpieces and vignettes, exhibiting a harmony and delicacy reminiscent of the best French printing of the period. John Pine (1690-1756) "may well have been the pupil of Bernard Picart, the great French engraver at Amsterdam; he was the best English engraver of the century. His edition of Horace is engraved throughout. The results are a unity between decoration and text which at times suggests Didot's Horace of 1799; a contrast between thick and thin strokes in the letters which naturally follows from the engraving process but which foreshadows the type design of Baskerville, Bodoni, and Didot; and the wide 'leading' between the lines of text which did so much to give their pages a brilliant effect" (PMM Exhibition). The style of the decoration on the spine, with gilt flowers surrounded by numerous smaller tools such as dots, stars, and leaves, was popularised in Paris by the royal bookbinder Antoine-Michel Padeloup, and continued by his successors Louis Douceur and Pierre-Paul Dubuisson. The royal binders were often handling London printings and one copy of Pine's Horace bound by Padeloup was sold by Quaritch and later by Christies (see Quaritch, pl. 81, and Christies Paris, Collection Michel Wittock, 8 Nov. 2004, lot 119). It is possible that this copy was bound for one of the Parisian subscribers. The subscriber lists demonstrate the publication's prestige and international reach. Volume 1 includes Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Prince of Orange, alongside subscribers from London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna. Volume 2 features George II of Great Britain, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and Louis XV of France; George Frederic Handel, Alexander Pope, and William Hogarth appear alongside other famous writers, artists, and musicians. This variant printing, with "Post Est" amended to "Potest" at vol. II. p. 108, listed by Rothschild as a second issue, is now regarded as a later printing of 1757 from the same plates. Blumenthal, Art of the Printed Book 72; Ray, England, p. 3; Rothschild 1548; Updike II, p. 138. Printing and the Mind of Man, Catalogue of the Exhibitions at the British Museum and at Earls Court, London, 1963; Michael Suarez, Engraved Throughout: Pine's Horace (1733) as a Bibliographical Object, 2015, accessible online; Quaritch, A Collection of Facsimiles from Examples of Historic Or Artistic Book-Binding, 1889. 2 vols, octavo (229 x 139 mm). Engraved throughout, each volume with frontispiece and 3 plates. Without the "List of Antiquities" in vol. I, as often. Contemporary French morocco, smooth spines divided by gilt rolls, elaborate floral decoration in compartments, green morocco labels, triple gilt fillet border on covers with flower tools in corners, board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. With 19th-century morocco armorial label on front pastedown, featuring a cross pattée gules on gold ground, which can be associated with various French families, including Baudoin, Tillet, and Ibelin. Gilt bright, one corner rubbed, contents generally clean. A fine set.