Parfumeurs · Grasse & Paris · Est. 1642
Custodians of the botanical archive
Three hundred and eighty-four years of one craft: the extraction of scent from living matter. Twelve compositions in the permanent collection, each still made in the atelier where it was first recorded.
The Collection · Plates I–III
Each composition is catalogued as an object of record.
Plate I · Nº 12
Cuir de Serre
Fig leaf, tomato vine, warm leather. Composed 1911, reformulated never.
Plate II · Nº 4
Orris de Verdaine
Orris butter aged nine years, violet leaf, cold stone. Composed 1878.
Plate III · Nº 9
Vérande Verte
Galbanum, crushed fig wood, vetiver from the old plantation. Composed 1953.
Exhibit note · The Maison
A house that measures time in harvests, not quarters.
In 1642, Estienne Verdaine, a distiller of medicinal waters, recorded the first formula that was bought for its beauty rather than its remedy: a pomade of neroli and bitter orange leaf, prepared for a house in Grasse. The ledger entry survives. So does the formula, unaltered in its essential proportions.
Twelve compositions have entered the permanent collection since. We do not discontinue. We do not reformulate to a price. When a harvest fails — the 2011 orris, the 2019 jasmine — the composition is simply not made that year, and the ledger records why. Patrons are notified by letter.
The archive itself — 4,180 botanical specimens, 611 formula books, and the correspondence of four generations of Verdaines — is held at the atelier in Grasse and may be consulted by appointment.
Catalogue raisonné · Extrait
The permanent collection
I.
Eau de 1642 · Neroli & Bitter Orange
Extrait de parfum · 50 ml · distillation atelier n°1, Grasse
€ 285 Nº 01
II.
Orris de Verdaine
Extrait de parfum · 50 ml · orris butter, nine-year rest
€ 420 Nº 04
III.
Cuir de Serre
Extrait de parfum · 50 ml · composed 1911 by Héloïse Verdaine
€ 360 Nº 12
IV.
Vérande Verte
Extrait de parfum · 100 ml · galbanum, fig wood, old-plantation vetiver
€ 310 Nº 09
V.
Coffret de l'Archive
Five extraits in hand-blown glass · numbered edition of 60 · consulted by letter only
€ 1,850 Nº 00
"A perfume is not a product of a season. It is a document — of one harvest, one hand, and one house that kept the recipe when it would have been cheaper not to."
Correspondence
Request the catalogue raisonné
The complete catalogue — including the archive volumes and the two compositions prepared only to commission — is sent by post, in print, twice each year. We add patrons to the ledger by letter.