3 Franciscan Desert Rose Cup Set

THREE FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE CUP AND SAUCER SETS, SIX PIECES, ONE WITH THE EARLY 1940s CALIFORNIA HAND DECORATED MARK Three Franciscan Desert Rose cup and saucer sets, six pieces total, in hand-painted California earthenware. Each cup has the pattern's low rounded bowl on a small pedestal foot with the distinctive sculpted green thorny-branch handle, and each is decorated with an opened pink wild rose with a dotted yellow center and a closed pink bud, carried on a brown thorny vine with two-tone green leaves. The matching saucers repeat the roses and leafy vine around a molded scalloped rim with the pattern's olive to brown rim wash and a recessed cup well. Notably, the three saucers are not all the same vintage: two carry the brown Gladding, McBean & Co. dotted-oval backstamp, while the third carries the earlier dark circular FRANCISCAN, MADE IN CALIFORNIA, HAND DECORATED, GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. mark, which is the older strike used in the 1940s into the early 1950s. That makes this an interesting group for a collector who watches marks. The sets coordinate with the Desert Rose dinner plates, bowls, gravy boat, cookie jar, and other pieces offered elsewhere in this sale. Sold as a lot of six pieces, three cups and three saucers. Description Three (3) cups and three (3) matching saucers in the Franciscan Desert Rose pattern, glazed earthenware, six pieces total Cup form: low, wide rounded bowl tapering to a small pedestal foot, with an applied and hand-modeled green thorny-branch loop handle in relief Cups measure approximately 2-1/4 inches tall per the tape-measure photograph, with the hook set on the tabletop beside the cup, and approximately 4 inches across the mouth per the tape laid over the rim. Cup capacity was not measured Saucers measure approximately 6 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph, with the hook set at the rim edge; saucer depth and well diameter were not measured with the tape. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs Saucer form: round with a molded scalloped and lightly waved rim and a recessed central well to seat the cup Decoration on each cup: an opened five-petal pink rose with an elongated yellow center dotted in dark brown on one side, a closed pink bud on the other, joined by an olive-brown thorny branch with broad green leaves in two tones; interiors are plain glazed cream Decoration on each saucer: pink roses and buds with green leaves on a brown vine following the molded rim, olive to brown rim wash along the scalloped edge, plain cream well Marks are mixed across the three saucers. Two saucers carry the brown dotted oval reading GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. around the upper ring, MADE IN U.S.A. across the lower ring, and at upper right, and the script Franciscan over EARTHENWARE inside the oval, with a single small letter beneath the oval and a hand-painted line below it reading approximately K 18. The third saucer carries a different, darker circular mark reading arched FRANCISCAN across the top, then MADE IN / CALIFORNIA / U.S.A., then HAND DECORATED, then GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. and a curved word along the bottom of the circle reading approximately OVENPROOF, with a small vertical word to the left that is not clearly legible The cup mark photographed is a small black stamp with no oval, reading MADE IN / U.S.A. with a single letter beneath, plus a faint hand-painted line of characters below that is not legible. Only one cup's underside was photographed, so the other two cups' marks are not shown. Cups in this pattern are frequently marked faintly or not at all Undersides are glazed with recessed foot rings and small round stilt or kiln-support points, which are normal firing artifacts of the manufacturing process rather than damage 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. The Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive documents the sequence of marks: the early circular stamps reading Franciscan, Made in California, U.S.A., Hand Decorated with the Gladding, McBean & Co. name are the oldest strikes, generally placed in the 1940s through the early 1950s, and collector references built on Lehner's encyclopedia of United States pottery marks date that style to the late 1940s and early 1950s. The brown dotted-oval Gladding, McBean & Co. mark follows it. Gladding, McBean was absorbed into the Interpace Corporation in the early 1960s, so INTERPACE ring marks are later still, roughly mid-1960s through the 1970s, and Wedgwood-era marks read England or Portugal. On that basis the three saucers here appear to span two production periods, with the darker circular mark being the earliest piece in the lot. Replacements, Ltd. catalogs and the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive both document this progression and identify the raised relief hand-painted rose decora