Scents of Time, subtitled Perfume From Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century, is a gift set that was published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1999. An outer box sleeve opens to reveal the book along with eight perfume minatures developed by Givaudan to illustrate the "most influential scents in history": frankincense, rose, sandalwood jasmine, orange blossom, spice, eau de cologne, millefleurs, and sportif.
The text provides a nicely illustrated survey of perfume history. A short introductory chapter introduces the major scent families, along with some basic production techniques and perfume terminology. Subsequent chapters explore various times and cultures: first ancient times in the Fertile Crescent, then the classical world of Greece and Rome, the East (including early Islamic perfumery and India), and East Asia. Most of the second half of the book is devoted to the development of perfumery in the West, from the Middle Ages to the present day.
It is not a long book (111 pages), and because of the large number of illustrations, the text is relatively brief, but it does provide a useful introduction to the subject, and the fragrances, while basic, would be useful to a novice. They are nicely packaged with plastic stoppers beneath the caps to prevent leakage, and mine have held up very well.
I am fairly sure this book is no longer in print, but I had no trouble locating a copy last year.
What a coincidence! I just ordered this last week and got the package today. I'm pretty excited about the little vials, I must admit. I scored a pristine copy for $18.44 (including S&H) from an Amazon Marketplace seller. Looking forward to cracking it open tonight.
It's readily available on amazon used, ebay, etc. It's a sweet little book, and bless them for trying to illustrate the scents of history, but they're all synthetic and smell flat, IMO.
T, that was a good buy. Can't remember what I paid for mine, but I am sure it was not less than that.
A, agree, as I said above, the scents will be useful for a novice though. If you didn't know what orange blossom smelled like, now you will know…but none of them are fragrances that I was dying to have a full bottle of.
I have a copy of this book and I really enjoy it! It's a simple but well written overview, illustrated with wonderful images of antique bottles, incense burners, related fashions, etc., and depictions of the uses of fragrance throughout history — including many works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collections.
The illustrations really are well-done, which is not always the case in perfume books…