Differing from their brilliantly whimsical sculptural works or vases with extravagant floral and sea life motifs, this slender footed and collared vase represents a more restrained side of the Martin Brothers' output. A highly controlled composition of palmettes and stylized foliage appears in the exposed color of the stoneware clay, against a stained black ground. The shallow incised design benefits from the additional tactile element of the characteristic orange peel texture, resulting from the salt-glaze technique.

The impression created by the vase is at the same time traditional in its elements, Victorian in its flat patterning and modern in its clean, crisp contrasts . Overall, however,one notes the elegance of execution which balances the slight roughness of the stoneware body, a dynamic shared with even the brothers' most bizarre creations.

From the 1870's until shortly before World War 1 the three Martin Brothers turned out highly personal--well, eccentric--stoneware pots and figures from an abandoned soap works in Southall. Typically they employed the salt glaze technique in which the surface of the clay is fused without the application of a separate glaze. This allowed their fine incised lines--as seen in this pot--and the detailed modeling of their figures to be seen without the obscuring effect of thick glazes.

While they were not without patrons in their lifetimes, financial returns were modest. However, Wallace, the last surviving brother who lived into the 1920's, saw the price of one of his bird figures bring a respectable fifty pounds at auction. Today such figural works sell for tens of thousands.