Poppies are one of the world’s most recognisable flowers, and their common presence in crop fields has inspired a number of paintings and representations in which the bright red dominates the scene. Instead, the Falling in Love variety, which is a breed selection for ornamental purposes, has scarlet-orange, rose, pink and peach-coloured semi-double, double or picotee bicoloured blooms. Nonetheless, they share the scarlet poppy’s association with sleep, hypnosis and death, dating back to the Greeks, who associated this flower with Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams. Later, in the 19th century, it became a favourite of the pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.
