3 Franciscan Desert Rose Dinner Plates

THREE FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE HAND-PAINTED DINNER PLATES - GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. OVAL MARK A second group of three Franciscan Desert Rose dinner plates in hand-painted California earthenware, each with the scalloped and swirled rim and a wide molded border of open pink wild roses with speckled yellow centers, closed pink buds, deep green paired leaves, and a thorny olive-brown vine, all in raised relief under a glossy ivory glaze. The painting on these three is a touch softer and lighter than on some of the other Desert Rose lots in this sale, with paler pink washes in the petals, clean feathered thorn strokes along the vine, and a soft olive wash carried over the scalloped rim edge. The stack count of three was confirmed by counting three distinct rim bands along the lower edge of the stacked profile photograph. One plate was turned over for its backstamp, and the enhanced close-up reads the brown dotted oval with GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring, quoted in full below, which places these plates before the Interpace corporate change of the early 1960s. Desert Rose is the best-selling American dinnerware pattern ever produced, so these plates are an easy fill-in against an existing service, and they also display well upright in a hutch or on a plate rail. The rims show wear to the vine wash along the scalloped edge and scattered dark glaze specks, and one rim point shows a small surface irregularity, all described in the condition section below. These plates run alongside the other Desert Rose lots in this sale, including the other dinner plate lots, salad and bread plates, saucers, cup and saucer sets, fruit and dessert bowls, serving and vegetable bowls, the oval platter, the divided dish and gravy set, the cookie jar, the bud vase, and the wine goblets. Sold as a lot of three plates. Description Three (3) Franciscan Desert Rose dinner plates, glazed earthenware, round with a scalloped and gently swirled rim and a shallow molded well Each plate measures approximately 10-1/2 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph. The tape is laid across the face with the hook end resting on the table above the rim rather than hooked against the plate edge, and the camera sits above the center, so the diameter should be read as a close estimate only. Plate thickness and well depth were not measured with the tape, and bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs Count of three confirmed by counting three separate rim bands along the lower edge of the stacked profile photograph Decoration is the Desert Rose border in raised relief: five-petal open pink roses with oval yellow centers speckled in dark green, closed pink buds, paired green leaves in two tones, and a continuous thorny olive to brown vine, with the vine wash carried over the scalloped outer rim edge. Petal washes are lighter and more transparent on these plates than on some of the other Desert Rose lots offered here, with individual brush striations clearly visible Backstamp on the plate photographed and enhanced reads, in the brown dotted oval, GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. curved along the top ring, Franciscan in script over EARTHENWARE at the center, the copyright and registered symbols beneath, and MADE IN U.S.A. curved along the bottom ring, with a single character struck just below the ring A separate hand-applied number appears beneath the oval, but it is very lightly struck and broke up into scattered dots under enhancement, so it is not legible and no reading is offered for it A faint impressed factory notation is visible in the well of one plate in the stacked photograph, seen only as a shallow raised patch under the glaze and not legible The undersides of the other two plates were not individually photographed with a legible mark, so their marks are not quoted here. All three plates are the same pattern, form, and rim profile in the photographs 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 sequence of marks: 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 1950s. The brown dotted oval naming GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring, as found here, follows the circular stamp and predates the corporate change. Gladding, McBean was absorbed into the Interpace Corporation in the early 1960s, after which the ring wording reads INTERPACE and the mark usually adds a two-part number along with OVEN SAFE and COLOR FAST. Later Wedgwood-era marks read England or Portugal rather than U.S.A., so the MADE IN U.S.A. line here confirms California production. Lehner's encyclopedia of United States pottery marks is the standard reference