Morris based the design on two Italian seventeenth-century lacis-work panels acquired by the South Kensington Museum in 1875. Lacis is a handmade net onto which a design is darned. For examples of the worked textile see WMG F154 and V&A T.68-1939 (bequeathed by May Morris).
Another version of the Flowerpot design is in the William Morris Society (watercolour and pencil on paper).