The firm which later became Shorter and Son was first set up by Arthur Shorter in 1878 with a partner James Boulton in Stoke on Trent. Their products were solidly in the main-stream of Victorian taste - majolica wares of all types predominated. Time saw another generation join the firm and various amalgamations took place. One of the sons, Colley Shorter, developed a close association with Clarice Cliff whom he eventually married. Her designs, while concentrated on the wares signed with her name, also fed in to the productions of Shorter and Sons and the range of their wares expanded considerably in the 1920s and 1930s. For a brief period between 1933 and 1935, the designer Mabel Leigh worked for the firm and produced a range of designs influenced by the ethnic art of Spain, the Middle East, Africa, India and Mexico, one of the most distinctive of these being the ‘Aztec pattern’, a freehand design with ‘sgraffito’ work. The format of the mark here indicates a dating to the 1950s or 1960s and these unusual planters seem to be a more modern interpretation and reworking of Leigh’s pre war designs. Shorters produced a range of planters in the 1960s but this pair do not seem to have any close parallels.