What's that smell? Dutch museum offers a whiff of 17th-century Amsterdam

The painting seems idyllic, a canal in Amsterdam in which two swans glide along the banks and a rowboat gently passes. But this 1670 painting by Dutch artist Jan van der Heyden also features a little wooden shack - an outhouse - on the side of the river, and a farmhand is seen shovelling horse manure right into the water.

Less idyllic when you think about what that must have smelled like, right? But the scents of the 17th century are the subject of a new exhibition Fleeting: Scents In Colour at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague that focuses on their effects on art and everyday life.