Scratch and Sniff Art History

Twelve famous paintings, each with a clear sticker somewhere on the canvas. Scratch it and the picture starts to smell. Caravaggio's Bacchus gives up a fruity, earthy chianti. Hokusai's Great Wave smells of sea air and fish. Hopper's Nighthawks smells of stale diner coffee. Munch's Scream is, we regret to report, bad breath.

Elizabeth Lunday (author of Secret Lives of Great Artists) wrote the captions, and they are the other half of the joke: real art history with a museum wall-label deadpan, plus a line at the bottom telling you exactly where to scratch. Arcimboldo's vegetable emperor smells of cherry and gardenia. The dogs playing poker come with a St. Bernard you can sniff, in a room the book describes as boozy, smoky and overlaid with eau de pooch.

Our copy made a stir in the studio the day it arrived. It is a board book with thick card pages, but it is written for grown-ups and older kids, and it looks good left out on a coffee table.

Board book, 28 pages, about 9 by 7 inches, with a linen-textured cover. Published by Workman, September 2026.