The plates, which are not by Choffard, exist before letters; there are also 6 “découvertes” ones, but these are exceedingly scarce.
A few copies of this book exist with the illustrations coloured, but they are not so fine as the uncoloured ones, for the plates were evidently only painted to please certain purchasers of the period and were not printed purposely for colouring.
The five publishers who shared the issue had their own names printed in their respective copies; thus the first and correct edition is issued under five different publishers’ names; all copies are of equal excellence, in spite of many collectors preferring “Hochereau.”
In some copies liber 8 comes after liber 9.
“Les Métamorphoses d’Ovide gravées sur les desseins des meilleurs peintres français. Par les soins des Srs. le Mire et Basan graveurs. A Paris, chez Basan rue du Foin S. Jacques. Le Mire rue S. Etienne des Grès. Avec privilege du Roi,” is engraved on the ornamental frontispiece that forms the half-title to volume i. Thus we know that it is to Basan’s and Le Mire’s care that we owe the most magnificently illustrated French book of the eighteenth century.
There is a re-issue of this book which is such a marvellous imitation of the original, that it would be easy for any but the most experienced to be deceived. Most of the plates are not quite so brilliant and the paper used is not as good as that of the first edition. But in many copies of the second edition the plates, or some of them, are of the first issue and not of a second one. Volume 4 of this reprint bears the date 1770, whereas the last volume of the good edition is dated 1771, and the third volume page 215 has 209 printed in error.
OVIDE. Les Métamorphoses d’Ovide traduction nouvelle avec le texte latin, suivie d’une analyse de l’explication des fables, etc., par M. G.-T. Villenave, ornée de gravures d’après les dessins de MM. Le Barbier, Monsiau et Moreau. Paris, Gay et Guestard (imprimerie de Didot l’aîné), 1806, 4 vols., large 4to or 8vo, vellum paper. 144 illustrations. Choffard engraved one plate after Monsiau.
Proofs and eaux-fortes exist of all the plates, with the exception of two.
PALISSOT. Œuvres de M. Palissot, nouvelle édition. Liège, Plomteux, 1777, 7 vols., 8vo. A portrait of the author engraved by Choffard after Monnet and 18 plates by Monnet and Méon.
The engraving of the 10 illustrations by Monnet, although not signed by Choffard, is attributed to him by MM. Portalis and Béraldi.