Smell

For three months in 2022 you could smell this painting. The Prado set diffusers beside it loaded with ten scents that Gregorio Sola, a perfumer at the fragrance house Puig, had rebuilt from what Brueghel put in the garden, among them orange blossom, jasmine, narcissus, lily and the animal note of civet. There was plenty to work from, since more than 80 species of plant and flower have been identified in the picture, along with the equipment of the trade, gloves perfumed with amber, burners, and vessels for distilling essences. The civet is not a metaphor here. A small spotted African cat lies curled at the feet of Venus, and the musky secretion it produces was a standard perfumer's ingredient for centuries.