The long lost sketchbook of Jeanne Magnin

In true ornamentalist fashion, Jeanne Magnin collected borders and motifs from her travels, and documented them in beautifully drawn and composed pages.

Egyptian border, from Jeanne Magnin's Documente de Style 1916 - 1917

Tara Bradford, the creative force behind one of my favorite blogs, Paris Parfait, found a little plain brown paper bundle at a brocante, which turned out to be a sketchbook full of gorgeous designs of Egyptian, Roman, and Greek styles, collected in 1916-1917 by the French painter, collector, and art critic Jeanne Magnin.

Egyptian ornament, from Jeanne Magnin's Documente de Style 1916 - 1917

Tara was generous enough to photograph each page of her amazing find and post them to her blog, at very high resolution. With her permission I have re-posted some of them here.

Roman-style rinceau and bucrane borders, sketches by Jeanne Magnin

In true ornamentalist fashion, Magnin collected borders and motifs from her travels, and documented them in beautifully drawn and composed pages.

Greek ornament: a page of palmettes

Greek borders

 Each page is like traveling to another time and place.

Greek motifs, Jeanne Magnin's Documente de Style 1916 - 1917

Magnin was the author of Le paysage français, published in 1928 and Un cabinet d'amateur parisien en 1922. You can learn more about Jeanne Magnin by visiting Le Musee Magnin in Dijon, France.
All photos in this post by Tara Bradford- click on images to view larger.

Follow the links below for more inspiration from Documente de Style 1916 - 1917
Egyptian designs
Roman designs
Greek designs

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