Object Type
Although functional as a holder for flowers, this vase was probably intended for show. This classical shape, with raised handles in the form of coiled snakes, is modelled on 16th-century Italian examples. Design in the Renaissance Revival style was increasingly popular during the mid-19th century, partly through the influence of design schools such as the one at South Kensington. A comparatively small pottery, using inexpensive earthenware, the Della Robbia Pottery was nevertheless ambitious and the wares reflected the owner's interests and his friendships with some of the key people in the Arts and Crafts world, such as William Morris (1834-1896), A. H. Mackmurdo (1851-1942), William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893).

People
Harold Steward Rathbone (1858-1929) was a painter, designer and poet. He founded the Della Robbia Pottery at Birkenhead in 1894, with the sculptor Conrad Dressler (1856-1940). Family connections with the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool brought Rathbone into contact with leading painters of the day. The Unitarian Rathbone household was described as 'a hotbed of social and political reform'. Rathbone travelled extensively in Europe and studied at the Slade School of Art and in Paris. He was an avid collector of paintings, pottery and manuscripts and in the 1870s was studying Renaissance sculpture in the South Kensington Museum. All of these interest formed the background to production at the Della Robbia Pottery.