100 Things That Still Make Being Me Just That Bit Better... 76
Pierre-Joseph Redoute's flowers.
... which I first came across when I was oh, nineteen? An Aged Relative gave me a box of scented stationery decorated with his paintings of roses (a goodly selection of which you can find here - are they not utterly beautiful???)... yes yes, even then I knew it was a less than subtle hint about how many letters some of us didn't write. (Things haven't changed. Much. Now I get heavy-hint-laden emails.) It didn't really work all that well, since for years the part of me that is forever illogical insisted that they were just too pretty to use...
I now have several books of Redoute's art, and treasure them dearly. And even now, the rose paintings make me remember that faint, old-fashioned perfume.
I do love them.