Wednesday scent of the day 5/13 :: Now Smell This

It’s Hump Day and World Cocktail Day and Stevie Wonder’s birthday. What fragrance are you wearing?

For the carved wooden figure of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth, on the chair — I thought it was part of the bed but apparently it is a chair, and the carving is believed to have been added later — behind the woman who is believed to be Costanza Trenta, possibly painted after she had died in childbirth, I am wearing Diptyque Tam Dao. 

Reminder: on 5/15 we’re doing the Picture challenge, edition 11. The subject is the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck.* As usual, you are free to be as farfetched as you like in your fragrance choice…or go literal: her dress is green, they are both wearing animal fur, there are oranges on the chest and windowsill, and cherries on the tree outside the window, etc etc. Thank you to Calypso for the suggestion! (In the fall, we’ll do a more modern piece by Sonia Delaunay, suggested by Kanuka.)

And for those of you who like to plan ahead, see Scent of the day ~ Friday community projects 2026, where I’ll try (but usually fail) to have the next five or six weeks mapped out in advance.

Note: top  and bottom images are detail from the Arnolfini Portrait, good image of full painting here.

*Extra reading: The many questions surrounding Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait at JSTOR (this article has many useful close ups of the painting); The Arnolfini Portrait: Theories, Interpretations, and Analysis at The Collector; Hannah Gadsby: why I love the Arnolfini Portrait, one of art history’s greatest riddles at The Guardian.