Rather than responding literally to each artwork, [perfumer Lyn] Harris teased out alternative readings. In a painting by Abraham Govaerts of peasants in a clearing by a river (A wooded river landscape with travellers and peasants on a path, men in a boat and a village beyond (early 17th century)), she homed in on the flickering light coming from a distant fire for a scent called Smoke in Woods. For Osias Beert the Elder’s floral still life of a fading floral bouquet (Still life of roses in an oriental lacquer and canework bowl, on a ledge with a butterfly and dragonfly (around 1615)), she picked up on the butterfly and dragonfly and created a fragrance called Rose and Insects—it’s one she often wears herself and contains no trace of rose, but honey, immortelle, papyrus and vetiver.

— Read more in What does an Old Master smell like? Meet the perfumer commissioned by Sotheby's at The Art Newspaper.