At Wild at Heart, we pride ourselves on collaborations that go beyond conventional flower design, working alongside artists, designers and cultural institutions to bring extraordinary creative visions to life.
This week, we had the pleasure of creating the florals for Pick Me, an original installation by Vienna based artist Sophia Stolz (@stolzes), commissioned as part of Christie’s (@christiesinc) Old Masters summer party in London.
Set within the richly coloured galleries of Christie’s, Pick Me brought together fresh flowers, ripe fruit, and Sophia’s hand crafted marzipan and chocolate sculptures in a lavish, painterly composition. Abundant, playful and quietly surreal, the piece sat somewhere between still life, feast and floral dreamscape.
Inspired by Jan van Huysum’s celebrated floral still lifes, Pick Me reinterpreted the language of the Dutch Golden Age through a contemporary lens. The work was created in direct response to two exceptional paintings by van Huysum, offered in Christie’s London Old Masters Evening Sale on 30 June 2026. Known for his extraordinary depictions of flowers and fruit, van Huysum captured the natural world with exquisite detail, turning moments of beauty and abundance into something theatrical, symbolic and deeply precious.
For centuries, vanitas paintings have reflected on beauty, abundance and the inevitability of decay. Flowers bloom only to wither. Fruit ripens only to perish. In this tradition, every moment of perfection already carries a sense of its own disappearance. Sophia translated this idea into an immersive installation where sculpture, confectionery and floristry merged into one extraordinary composition.
Hidden amongst the fresh flowers and fruit were hand crafted marzipan and chocolate replicas, inviting guests into an act of close observation. The work asked viewers to distinguish the edible from the natural, the permanent from the perishable, the authentic from the meticulously constructed.
Yet Pick Me was not simply an homage to van Huysum’s imagery. It also reflected on the rituals of viewing art today. Here, curiosity became participation. The search for hidden objects transformed guests from passive spectators into active participants, encouraging conversation, discovery and a more playful way of engaging with the Old Masters.
Our team worked closely with Sophia to source and select every stem, ensuring the flowers mirrored the depth, richness and drama of the historic artworks at the heart of the sale. Flowers spilled through the centre of the room in rich, romantic colour, from soft garden roses and delicate clematis to foxgloves, hydrangeas, poppies and wild, expressive stems. Around them, fruit gathered across the surface in generous clusters, with pomegranates, lemons, grapes, figs, peaches and jewel like sculptural details blurring the line between the edible and the ornamental.
The result was an immersive floral still life, alive with texture and movement. Set against deep green walls and framed by historic paintings, the installation felt both rooted in history and completely of the moment. The flowers were designed to feel as though they had grown from the artwork itself, reaching upwards and outwards with tangled stems, soft blooms and painterly colour echoing the still lifes that inspired the piece.
For Wild at Heart, the brief was a beautiful opportunity to respond to Sophia’s concept while bringing our own signature sense of abundance, movement and wild romance. Our contribution ensured that the flowers within the composition held their own alongside her extraordinary craftsmanship and the historic artworks that inspired it.
Like the paintings that inspired it, Pick Me existed only temporarily. Its flowers would fade, its fruit would soften, and its edible sculptures could disappear entirely. In embracing impermanence, the installation asked what truly gives an object value: its material, its craftsmanship, its rarity, its lifespan or simply the attention we choose to give it.
It was a joy to be part of such a thoughtful and evocative commission, celebrating the enduring power of flowers in art, storytelling and experience.
About Sophia Stolz
@stolzes is a Vienna based cake artist and creative director whose practice sits at the intersection of fine art, fashion and sculpture. Working internationally with leading luxury fashion houses, cultural institutions and galleries, she transforms patisserie into a conceptual artistic medium, exploring materiality, illusion and transience through edible installations and cakes.
Featured artworks
Jan van Huysum, Fruit and flowers in a wicker basket and other fruit on a marble ledge, a column and terracotta urn with other flowers behind
Jan van Huysum, Flowers in a terracotta vase and a bird’s nest on a marble ledge before a niche
Both works were offered in Christie’s London Old Masters Evening Sale, which took place on 30 June 2026.
If you're looking to elevate your next special occasion with elegance and sophistication, look no further than Wild at Heart. Contact us at events@wildatheart.com, and let us transform your vision into an unforgettable reality.
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