For the first time the Prado Museum proposes an olfactory relationship with painting.
Until July 3, the exhibition “The sense of Smell. An Olfactory Exhibition” proposes a new approach to the Prado collections, this time through the sense of smell. For this purpose, the perfumer Gregorio Sola, with the support of the AirParfum olfactory technology developed by Puig, has created 10 fragrances linked to objects that appear in the work The Smell, part of the set of paintings The Five Senses that Jan Brueghel painted in 1617 and 1618 and in which the allegorical figures are the work of his friend Rubens.
The AirParfum technology, developed by Puig and unique in the world of perfumery, makes it possible to smell up to 100 different fragrances without saturating the sense of smell, respecting the identity and nuances of each perfume. Thanks to the four diffusers on the touchscreen monitors installed in the room, visitors will be able to smell the objects from the 17th century portrayed in the painting.
Gregorio Sola, Senior Perfumer at Puig and Academic of Academia del Perfume has created, for example, Allegory, which invites us to fix our gaze on the bouquet of flowers whose scent the allegorical figure is inhaling; Gloves, which reproduces the scent of a glove perfumed with amber according to a formula dating from 1696; Fig Tree, which prompts us to look for this plant in the picture; Orange Blossom, which focuses our attention on the apparatus used to distil this product; and so on, with a total of 10 fragrances that will accompany the sense of sight to provide a unique experience while viewing the painting.
From April 4 to July 3, 2022. Prado Museum. Room 83, Villanueva building, Madrid, Spain.