Impressive large pair of Royal Doulton stoneware jardinieres on stands in attractive tonal blues with tube-lined Art Nouveau floral and foliate designs. The large jardinieres are of truncated baluster form with everted rim and flat base – fitting perfectly onto tapering cylindrical stands with shaped mouldings to top and foot. Impressed Royal Doulton marks to stands and impressed marks to one of the jardinieres. Both jardinieres with incised pattern number 8107. One with incised monogram MB (for Maud Bowden) and mark for Annie Partridge. Other of the pair having faint marks (largely obscured). Height of the pair is 70 cm (stands are 49 cm and jardinieres are 21 cm in height). Maximum diameter of jardinieres is 25 cm. Seen in images that diameters at foot of stands differ slightly.
 
Maud Bowden was one of the longer serving Doulton Lambeth assistants – from c1903 when the elaborate designs of the Victorian period had changed into more simple tube-lined designs. She worked at Royal Doulton until 1937, when the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles were in decline. She was well regarded as a Senior Assistant - assisting many of the renown Doulton artists as well as completing her own designs. Annie Partridge worked at Doulton from 1882 to 1913. She joined Doulton’s art department as a junior assistant but was listed as a senior assistant by 1890. Although Maud Bowden is now the better known, Annie Partridge would have been senior to her when this pair of jardinieres were made.