Perfume is invisible. A name can remain on paper for generations. In the maison’s old catalogue, royal names and titles open a quiet conversation between Grasse and another age.
Contemporary portrait interpretations, accompanied by biographical sources and the maison’s original catalogue.
This original catalogue records the supplier titles printed by Bruno Court in September 1933. It does not list individual orders or formulas.
From Danish princess to British queen, Alexandra’s life crossed the threshold between two ages. She married the future Edward VII in 1863 and became queen consort in 1901. Her name carries the quiet distance of another century — and survives, close enough to read, on a page of the maison’s history.
View the 1933 catalogueBiographical sources
An age came to bear his name. The eldest son of Victoria and Albert, and Alexandra’s husband, Edward became king in 1901 after a long life as Prince of Wales. His reign lasted until 1910; the memory of the Edwardian age reaches far beyond those few years.
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She became queen at eighteen. Over a reign lasting from 1837 to 1901, Victoria’s name became the name of an age. Mother of Edward VII, she stands at the beginning of this family story — a figure through whom the nineteenth century still feels close.
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Behind Ferdinand’s name lies a country in transition. Born in Vienna into the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family, he became Prince of Bulgaria in 1887, then tsar after independence was declared in 1908. His reign ended in 1918; his name remained on a page printed in Grasse.
View the 1933 catalogueBiographical sources
Few names evoke the nineteenth century as immediately as Bonaparte. This portrait introduces Napoléon-Jérôme, son of Jérôme Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I and first cousin of Napoleon III. A political figure of the Second Empire, he is one bearer of a title whose identity in the Bruno Court archive is still being explored.
View the 1933 catalogueBiographical sources