The world's first perfume archive

On 26 April 1990, the world's first perfume archive opened in Versailles, France. The idea behind L'Osmothèque was to create a collection of scents and preserve their memory. Perfumer Jean Claude Ellena was one of the team who created it. He speaks to Jen Dale about how L'Osmothèque was founded and how perfumes from previous centuries, that no longer existed, were re-created. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space. (Image: Perfume bottles at L'Osmothèque, Versailles. Credit: L'Osmothèque)

You can listen to The world's first perfume archive online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The world's first perfume archive is an episode from Witness by BBC.

This episode is 10:06 long.

This episode was published on Apr 27, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Witness when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.