4 Franciscan Desert Rose Saucer

FOUR FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE SAUCERS - GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. BROWN OVAL MARK Four Franciscan Desert Rose saucers in the pattern's scalloped round form, hand-painted in the familiar open pink roses, closed buds, green leaves, and molded olive thorny vine around the rim. Each measures approximately 6 inches across and each has the raised interior cup ring that identifies these as saucers rather than bread-and-butter plates, though the two forms are close enough in diameter that they are often confused in listings. The undersides carry the brown dotted oval mark with GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. curved through the top ring, quoted in full below, which places these in the earlier California production before the Interpace era. The count is confirmed from the profile photographs, where four separate rims and four separate rim bands are visible in the stack. Cups without saucers are one of the most common gaps in an inherited Desert Rose service, so a group of four matched saucers fills that need directly, and they also work on their own as small dessert, olive, or candle plates. These pair with the other Desert Rose lots in this sale, including the dinner and bread plate lots, 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 cookie jar, the bud vase, and the wine goblets. Sold as a lot of four saucers. Description Four (4) Franciscan Desert Rose saucers, round with a shaped and scalloped rim, a wide decorated flange, and a raised cup ring in the well Each measures approximately 6 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph. In the tape shot the hook end rests on the table alongside the saucer rather than hooked against its rim, and the tape lies across the face at a slight angle, so that figure should be read as a close estimate. Depth and foot-ring diameter were not measured with the tape, and bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs Count confirmed from the two profile photographs of the stack, where four distinct rims and four distinct rim edges can be counted from the side 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 with green sepals, green leaves in two tones, and a continuous molded olive-brown thorny vine running the outer rim Painting on these four is medium in tone, with the roses well filled and the leaf greens strong, and the flange grounds are a clean warm white Backstamp on each, 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 struck character below the oval A sideways number is struck to the right of the oval, reading under enhancement as approximately 05 40, blunt and only partly legible, so that reading is offered with reservation No paper labels are present, which is normal for pieces of this age that saw table use Attribution note Desert Rose was introduced in 1941 by Gladding, McBean & Co. of Los Angeles, California, and went on to become 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. The brown dotted oval naming GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring, as found here, 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. The GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. oval with MADE IN U.S.A. therefore points to California manufacture in the earlier part of the pattern's run. Lehner's encyclopedia of United States pottery marks is the standard reference for these stamps. Struck numbers and letters beside a mark are factory or decorator notations rather than dates. All mark readings, era assignments, form designations, pattern identifications, and dimensions 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 saucers were photographed as a stack from above and from two low profile angles, with a single saucer shown face up, and with the underside and a close backstamp shot. The hand-painted decoration is bright and unfaded and the molded relief is crisp. Light utensil scuffing and faint surface scratching are visible in the wells, consistent with table use. The olive vine wash