The larger of the two vases is a rare marked example of shape 373. It and the eight other examples being offered (lots 110-113) appear to be variations made by Minton after March 4, 1848 (when shape no. 367 is recorded) but by circa 1862 when the impressed name of the firm as a mark first came into use.

See Joan Joans, Minton: The First Two Hundred Years of Design & Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, p. 345. Although shape 373, 'Match Pot, Lily of the Valley' is listed as 4½in. high, according to Joan Jones variations in the size in which it was produced and in the gilding pattern are not unusual.