Guests were invited to smell:

Pontifical (Paris, 1500 to 1525)

A medieval liturgical book made from prepared animal skin. Vellum has a distinctly animalic scent, very different to printed books.

The Nuremberg Chronicle (Nuremberg, 1493)

Printed on paper made from pulped cotton, linen and hemp rags, long before cheaper wood pulp took over in the 18th and 19th centuries. Rag paper smells gentler and less sweet than modern paper, with a muted, cloth-like warmth.

In Search of Lost Time (Marcel Proust, 1949 to 1960)

Volume 1 of 15, by the author most famously associated with scent and memory. Paper of this age gives off the sweet, vanilla-like scent of vanillin as its lignin slowly breaks down.

In the foyer, I set up a scent station with a selection of favourite books on smell and Archive eau de parfum by Liminus, created by Hilary Schofield. Commissioned by the State Library and Archives of Tasmania, it captures the spicy, dusty scent of Tasmania’s convict records, with notes of parchment, red rot and leather.

Salon After D’Arc is presented by State Library Victoria and generously supported by the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust.