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This exhibition invites you to experience art in a profoundly new way. Created by PUIG in collaboration with Artphilia, Watts Gallery has curated a bespoke olfactory experience inspired by key elements within selected Pre-Raphaelite works.
This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into the world of Victorian art. By engaging your sense of smell, you'll gain a new appreciation for the artists' intentions and the cultural context in which they created their works. Discover how scent played a vital role in Victorian society, influencing everything from personal hygiene to social status.
Discover the works of renowned artists such as Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, John Frederick Lewis, John Everett Millais, Evelyn De Morgan, G F Watts, Simeon Solomon, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Featuring loans from institutions Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, the Birmingham Museums Trust, and the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity to explore the Pre-Raphaelite movement through a multi-sensory lens.
This exhibition originated at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, The University of Birmingham, 11 October 2024 – 26 January 2025.
We are delighted to be partnering with PUIG, Artphilia, AirParfum, Silent Pool Gin and Little Greene for this exhibition.
Dr. Christina Bradstreet
Dr. Christina Bradstreet is an art historian specialising in Victorian art. She is Head of Programmes at the Association for Art History. Her book Scented Visions: Smell in Art, 1850-1914 was published by Penn State University Press in September 2022.
“Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian Aesthetic paintings are so often described as ‘multisensory’, but smell and its significance has been overlooked, despite being ‘under our noses’ all along. Many 19th - and early 20th-century ideas about smell and smelling, such as the belief that smell is disease or that rainbows emanate the sweet scent of fresh, wet meadows after a rainstorm, seem outlandish today. Yet this contextual information lends a new and vital perspective for understanding some of the most iconic Victorian paintings.”
Corinna Henderson
Corinna Henderson is Exhibitions Curator at Watts Gallery. Specialising in nineteenth and early twentieth century British art, she is particularly interested exploring historic collections through the lens of contemporary artistic response, commissioning, and the intersection of heritage space and curation.
John Everett Millais, The Blind Girl, 1856, oil on canvas, 80.8 x 53.4 cm. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0
Simeon Solomon, A Saint of the Eastern Church (formerly called A Greek Acolyte), 1867–1868, watercolour over pencil with gum on paper, 45.2 x 32.8 cm. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, 1882, oil on canvas, 78.7 x 39.2 cm. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0
John Frederick Lewis, Lilium Auratum, 1871, oil on canvas, 136.6 x 87.5 cm. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0