You can smell it from afar. A touch of mint, cinnamon and cloves, rose petals. It is a perfume that no one has ever smelled, at least not now, in our time. This scent had disappeared from the face of the earth for at least three centuries, until a group of Dutch academics decided to recreate it. According to the old recipe of Constantijn Huygens, secretary of various stadtholders, poet and diplomat from the 17th century.
On a Monday morning, the scientists are bent over an alembic, a large copper kettle, in a lab of Utrecht University. The preparation will then certainly take 24 hours. Ineke Huysman, researcher at the Huygens Institute for Dutch History, bought fresh thyme, marjoram and mint from the greengrocer at the weekend. She ordered the cypriol root, which is difficult to obtain these days, from a company in Germany. The lavender and rose petals also reached her by mail. She chopped and sliced, put everything together in a large glass mason jar and soaked the mixture in water for 24 hours.
Now all that plant material, submerged in water, is contained in the red copper alembic. We have to wait for the moment when the scented water evaporates, then condenses again, and drips into a cup in the purest possible form, like a misty white liquid. ‘The first time we could fall into each other’s arms, it smelled so special,’ says Huysman.
‘A whole new side of Huygens’
Huygens called this recipe ‘Rieckend water from my mother’. The idea to make it again came from Ineke Huysman. She was involved in the digitization of Huygens’ correspondence and came across countless references to perfumes. Together with Nadine Akkerman, associate professor of English literature, also an expert on Huygens’ correspondence and member of the Young Academy, she is now able to put her intention into practice.
‘This is a whole new side of Huygens’, says Huysman. ‘Scents were a way for him to maintain contacts. He exchanged recipes with other men and tried to impress women.’
That sometimes went quite far. Huygens, who also excelled in music, sent scent bags to the Anglo-Dutch singer Utricia Ogle. They would not see each other for a long time. “Now that our ear contact has thus been broken, I thought it a good idea to reconnect to some extent through the sense of smell,” he wrote. ‘I beg you, ma’am, to allow these pouches to bring us this result. I sprinkle my linens with something similar. If you deem them fit too, it will occasionally lead me into a beautiful musical dream of Ogle’s bath and under her sheet.’
The scents are closely linked to Huygens’ personal life, which is precisely what the researchers find so interesting. ‘When Huygens’ letters were published in the past, the emphasis was strongly on the passages about politics,’ says Akkerman. “Other parts were simply left out, with the remark: not important.”
Huysman: ‘When I went to request the original letters, there turned out to be very beautiful passages, about falling in love, with poems. For that side of history, the emotions, the mentality, the experience, I think there should be much more attention.’
Other senses addressed
These scientists are not the only ones who think so. In recent years, there has been a remarkable amount of interest in scents from the past. Cultural historians from the Free University have already started working with the air of the Battle of Waterloo. The smell of the ‘disaster year’ 1672, when the Netherlands was attacked from all sides, is also in the making. The emphasis has been on only the visible part of history for too long, say the scientists who deal with historical scents. As far as they are concerned, the other senses should also be addressed. This gives the past a new dimension.
In this way, historical figures such as Huygens become more interesting for ‘ordinary people’, Huysman thinks. ‘When they see that someone like Huygens was engaged in the things they are still involved in, it arouses interest,’ she says. ‘And smell is something so basic. You don’t have to be educated to smell a scent.’ It fits in at a time when science is no longer just for colleagues, but for the whole world.
Rainwater or tap water?
At the same time, new scientific questions arise by reconstructing a fragrance such as that of Huygens, believes Marjolijn Bol, technical art historian and senior lecturer at Utrecht University. “For example, this recipe says to use rainwater,” she says. ‘But how comparable is the rainwater of then to the rainwater of today? Would it be better to use tap water? Maybe not, because all kinds of minerals are added to it. In the end we opted for demineralized water. But you could do an entire research project on this, on the role of water in reconstructions of 17th-century material culture.’
Constantijn Huygens’ odoriferous water, which was intended to be sprinkled around the house and now also hits the walls of the lab, is even given a second life. Ineke Huysman took it to Paris and found a contemporary cosmetics company that smelled something in it. A ‘nose’ of the famous perfume house Givaudan, who also designed fragrances for Ivanka Trump and for Rihanna, made her own contemporary interpretation. That scent has now been incorporated into scented candles – and will soon be for sale.
In Huygens’ Hofwijck in Voorburg, from April 6 to July 3, the exhibition Constantijn Huygens – Smells and images to see. You will also be able to smell the ‘squeaking water of my mother’ there. A larger exhibition about Huygens’ letters will follow at the same location in the autumn.