Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from Bookbinder Jeanette Koch

$2,750.00

(Jeanette Koch - Bookbinder) Metamorphoses. By Ovid. Translated and introduced by Mary M. Innes. Illustrations by Richard Shirley Smith. Folio Society. 1995. 350p. 9.75” x 7”. Illustrations in black and white and color. Unique binding by Jeanette Koch in 2001. Bound in gray goatskin, gray dyed chicken feet skin, eel skin strap lined with pink goatskin with acrylic painted edges and four silver and gold cup-shaped fastenings made by Romilly Saumarez Smith. All edges gilded and sanded. Grey suede doublures, gray Japanese Mingei paper endpapers. Binder’s stamp at spine edgeof back doublure. Laid in a black cloth dropback box lined with dusky pink handmade paper and built-up gray rectangles to support the book. Leather title label on spine. Fine.

Koch writes: “I wanted a restrained binding as far as colour was concerned because of the rather delicate pale-coloured illustrations. However the mixture of skins indicates the nature of metamorphosis from human to animal.”