4 Franciscan Desert Rose Plates

FOUR FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE DINNER PLATES - EARLY GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. BROWN BACKSTAMP Offered here is a matched set of four Franciscan Desert Rose dinner plates in hand-decorated California earthenware, the best-selling American dinnerware pattern ever produced. Each plate carries the pattern's molded and hand-painted border of open pink wild roses with dotted yellow centers, tight pink buds, glossy green leaves, and a continuous thorny branch that follows the scalloped rim. On this group the branch and rim wash read in a deeper olive-brown tone with pronounced painted thorns, and several leaves are laid in a cooler gray-green, giving these plates a slightly richer, earthier border than later production. All four are marked on the underside with the earlier brown Gladding, McBean & Co. dotted-oval backstamp rather than the later Interpace mark, which places them in the older California-made period of production. These plates coordinate with the Desert Rose cup and saucer sets, bowls, and serving pieces offered elsewhere in this sale, making this a practical lot for a bidder building out or completing a service. Excellent for holiday and everyday table use, china cabinet display, or wall hanging in a kitchen or breakfast room. Sold as a lot of four pieces. Description Four (4) matching dinner plates in the Franciscan Desert Rose pattern, glazed earthenware, round with a molded scalloped and wavy rim edge Each plate measures approximately 10-1/2 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph; the tape was laid across the face of one plate and the far rim edge falls at roughly the 10-1/2 inch line. The hook end of the tape is cropped out of the top of that frame, so the reading is an estimate and bidders should verify the diameter for themselves. Plate depth and rim width were not measured with the tape Stack height of the four plates together is shown in the side-profile photographs Decoration is the standard Desert Rose border treatment: multiple open five-petal pink roses with elongated yellow pollen centers dotted in dark brown, tight pink buds, broad leaves in two tones, and a thorny olive-brown vine wrapping the entire rim; the relief molding under the glaze gives the leaves and branch a raised, hand-modeled feel Rim edges carry the characteristic wash along the scalloped border, here in a darker olive to brown tone Center wells are undecorated cream white with soft concentric shaping rings Undersides are fully glazed white with a recessed foot ring Backstamp, photographed close up and enhanced, reads in a brown dotted oval: GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. across the top of the ring and MADE IN U.S.A. across the bottom, with a small and at upper right, and inside the oval the script Franciscan over EARTHENWARE. A single small numeral 2 sits directly beneath the oval, and below that is a faint hand-painted line of characters that appears inverted relative to the stamp and is not clearly legible in the photographs Small round stilt or kiln-support points are visible on the glazed undersides; these are normal firing artifacts of the manufacturing process, not damage Attribution note Desert Rose was introduced in 1941 by Gladding, McBean & Co. of Los Angeles, California, and went on to become the single best-selling pattern of American dinnerware ever produced, with California manufacture continuing into the mid-1980s. Gladding, McBean was absorbed into the Interpace Corporation in the early 1960s, so backstamps that still carry the GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. company name in the ring, as these plates do, predate the INTERPACE ring marks and are generally considered the earlier and more collected strike. Later Wedgwood-era marks show England or Portugal rather than U.S.A. Replacements, Ltd. catalogs and the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive both document this progression of marks and identify the raised-relief hand-painted rose border as the defining feature of the pattern. The mark reading, era, pattern identification, and dimensions given here are offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and are not guaranteed; parts of the mark are faintly struck and bidders should judge them from the photographs. Bid on the item as pictured. Condition Used vintage condition, sold as-is. All four plates were photographed as a stack, individually face up, in profile, and in close detail, including the underside and the backstamp. The glaze is bright and glossy overall, the painted decoration is strong with good color saturation, and no chips, cracks, or breaks were observed in the photographs. Expect light overall utensil scuffing and faint flatware scratching in the plate wells consistent with actual table use. Scattered dark specks, pinpoint iron flecks, and small glaze bumps are visible on several plates and are typical of hand-decorated earthenware of this age. Noticeable variation in brushwork, leaf color, and rim wash tone from one plate to the next should be expected, as each was hand painted, and