2 Cups & 4 Rose Saucers

FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE - TWO CUPS AND FOUR SAUCERS, SIX PIECES, GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. Two Franciscan Desert Rose teacups with four Desert Rose saucers, six pieces in all, so the lot makes two complete cup and saucer settings with two extra saucers. The cups are the standard footed form with the pattern's molded green thorny-branch handle, hand-painted with an open pink rose and a closed bud between green leaves, and the four saucers are the scalloped 6 inch form with the molded olive vine running the rim. The saucer undersides carry the brown dotted oval mark naming GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring with a struck number alongside, quoted in full below, placing them in the earlier California production before the Interpace era. The cups carry no oval mark, only a struck number reading 13460 with a MADE IN U.S.A. line and a single numeral, which is normal for Desert Rose cups and is detailed below. Both cup interiors show faint tan shading and light staining, and one saucer shows a small dark spot at the outer rim edge that could not be resolved from the photographs, both noted in the condition section. Extra saucers are worth having in any Desert Rose service, since the saucer is what breaks when a cup goes over. These pair with the other Desert Rose lots in this sale, including the dinner and bread plate lots, the four-saucer lot, the four cup and saucer sets, fruit and dessert bowls, serving and vegetable bowls, the oval platter, the divided dish and gravy set, the covered butter dish and shakers, the two pitchers, the cookie jar, the bud vase, and the wine goblets. Sold as a lot of six pieces, two cups and four saucers. Description Two Franciscan Desert Rose teacups, footed rounded form with a molded and glazed green branch-form handle Four Franciscan Desert Rose saucers, round with a shaped and scalloped rim and a shallow cup ring in the well Cups measure approximately 3-1/2 inches across the rim and stand approximately 2-1/2 inches tall to the rim, both per the tape-measure photographs Saucers measure approximately 6 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph Count confirmed two ways: the opening photograph shows the two cups nested beside the saucer stack, and the two low profile photographs of the stack show four distinct rims and four distinct rim edges Decoration is the Desert Rose pattern in raised relief under a glossy glaze: open five-petal pink roses with speckled yellow centers, closed pink buds, green leaves in two tones, tan-olive branch work, and the molded olive-brown thorny vine along the saucer rims. The cup handles are modeled as thorny branch sections and washed in olive green Saucer backstamp, photographed and enhanced, is the brown dotted oval reading GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. curved along the top ring, Franciscan in script over EARTHENWARE at the center, the copyright and registered symbols beneath, MADE IN U.S.A. along the bottom ring, and a single small struck character below the oval. A sideways number is struck outside the oval reading approximately 01640, blunt and only partly legible, so that reading is offered with reservation Cup underside carries no oval or ring mark. It shows a struck number reading 13460, a sideways MADE IN U.S.A. line, and a single numeral reading 1 No paper labels are present on any piece, which is normal for a service that saw table use Attribution note Desert Rose was introduced in 1941 by Gladding, McBean & Co. of Los Angeles, California, and became the best-selling pattern of American dinnerware ever produced, with California manufacture continuing into the mid-1980s. Replacements, Ltd. and the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive record the mark sequence: the earliest pieces carry a dark circular stamp reading Franciscan, Made in California, U.S.A., Hand Decorated with the Gladding, McBean & Co. name, generally assigned to the 1940s into the early 1950s, and the brown dotted oval naming GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring, as found on these saucers, follows it. Gladding, McBean was absorbed into the Interpace Corporation in the early 1960s, so INTERPACE ring marks with OVEN SAFE and COLOR FAST lines belong to roughly the mid-1960s through the 1970s, and later Wedgwood-era marks read England or Portugal rather than U.S.A. Cups in this pattern were commonly struck only with a number and a MADE IN U.S.A. line rather than the full oval, because the small footed base left little room for the stamp, so the absence of an oval on the cups is not unusual and does not indicate a different maker. The 13460 number on these cups matches the cup number found on other Desert Rose cups in this same consignment, which supports reading these as factory-original mates to the saucers rather than a later mix. Lehner's encyclopedia of United States pottery marks is the standard reference for the earlier stamps. Struck numbers and letters beside a mark are factory or decorator notations rather than dates. Condition Used vintage condition, sold