A must visit – Exhibition “A Journey Through the History of Perfume. The Storp Collection”

From May 21 to November 30, 2025, the Palazzo Mocenigo Museum – Study Centre for the History of Textiles, Costume and Perfume – will host ehxibition “A Journey Through the History of Perfume. The Storp Collection”.

This unique cultural project is delveloped by Mavive and Zignago Vetro, with the support of fragrance house Givaudan and in collaboration with the Department of Cultural Heritage – Archaeology, History of Art, Cinema and Music at the University of Padua.

“Perfume may fade, but the bottle preserves its memory.” 

Visitors will embark on an immersive journey spanning over six thousand years of olfactory culture, brought to life through a dramatic timeline divided into 32 themed modules.

The display features over 500 historical perfume bottles, and the design, materials, and forms of the bottles on display reflect the creativity of different eras and cultures, highlighting perfumery’s cultural and anthropological significance.

For this occasion, Givaudan Fragrance Historian Eugénie Briot and Givaudan Perfumers Gaël Montero, Calice Becker and Nisrine Bouazzaoui Grillié have teamed up to reconstruct seven historical fragrances, using the original recipies.

The Storp Collection

The centerpiece of the exhibition is the Storp Collection, one of the most important private collections of perfume bottles in the world – on public display for the first time in its entirety.

Now housed at Palazzo Mocenigo thanks to an agreement between the Storp family and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, the collection began in 1911 with the founding of the fragrance company Drom and has grown over three generations to include more than 3,000 pieces.

For the first time, it is being presented to the public in a broad and coherent historical context, offering a unique journey through the aesthetic and olfactory memory of humankind.

The exhibition has been curated by leading figures from each of the involved institutions: Marco Vidal (CEO of Mavive), Chiara Squarcina (Scientific Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia), Luigi Zanini (curator of the Palazzo Mocenigo Museum), professors Monica Baggio, Barbara Savy and Massimo Vidale from the University of Padua.

Don’t miss it – I won’t!