4 Franciscan Desert Rose Plates

FOUR FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE BREAD AND BUTTER PLATES - GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. OVAL MARK Four matching Franciscan Desert Rose bread and butter plates in hand-painted California earthenware, each with the scalloped and swirled rim, a shallow molded well, and the pattern's border of open pink wild roses with speckled yellow centers, closed pink buds, paired green leaves, and a thorny olive-brown vine, all carried in raised relief under a glossy ivory glaze. On this small size the border wraps nearly the full rim, so the plates read as very decorative for their footprint and they show off the relief modeling well. The stack count of four was confirmed by counting four separate 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. clearly legible in the top ring, quoted in full below, which places these plates before the Interpace corporate change of the early 1960s. Plates this size are the ones most often broken or lost out of a service, so a matched group of four is a useful fill-in, and they also work as bread, dessert, appetizer, or cheese plates and as ring or trinket dishes on a dresser. Wear to the vine wash along the scalloped rim edge and scattered dark glaze specks are present and are described in the condition section below. These plates run alongside the other Desert Rose lots in this sale, including the dinner plate lots, 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 four plates. Description Four Franciscan Desert Rose bread and butter plates, glazed earthenware, round with a scalloped and gently swirled rim, a shallow molded well, and a recessed foot ring Each plate measures approximately 6-1/4 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 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. Painting is soft and clean, with visible brush striations in the petals and finely feathered thorn strokes 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 A separate number is struck beneath the oval and reads as three characters, approximately 800, blunt and only partly legible under enhancement, so that reading is offered with reservation The undersides of the other three plates were not individually photographed with a legible mark, so their marks are not quoted here. All four plates are the same pattern, form, size, 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 examples 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 for these earlier stamps. Struck numbers and single letters near a mark are factory or decorator notations rather than dates. All mark readings, era assignments, pattern identification, form designation, count, and dimensions given here are offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and are not guaranteed. Bid on the items as pictured. Condition Used vintage condition, sold as-is. The plates were photographed stacked from two angles, in profile at the stack edge, face up