Franciscan Desert Rose Divided Dish

FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE DIVIDED OVAL VEGETABLE DISH - GLADDING, McBEAN & CO., HAND-PAINTED CALIFORNIA EARTHENWARE A single Franciscan Desert Rose divided oval vegetable serving dish in the pattern's creamy ivory ground, with hand-painted pink open roses, pink rosebuds, green leaves, and tan-brown thorny branch vines around the interior and exterior rim, finished with the pattern's brushed green rim edge. The form is a wide oval with a scalloped, gently ruffled rim and a raised molded center divider that splits the well into two equal compartments - the standard serving piece for putting two vegetables, two relishes, or a vegetable and a starch on the table in one dish. The underside carries the brown dotted-oval Gladding, McBean & Co. Franciscan Earthenware backstamp, placing it in the earlier California production era before the Interpace mark change. The relief-molded roses stand proud of the surface and the hand-painted brushwork varies piece to piece, which is part of the appeal of this pattern to collectors. It serves well as an everyday piece and displays well on a hutch shelf or plate stand. This lot pairs with the other Franciscan Desert Rose lots offered in this sale, including the dinner and bread plate lots, the saucer lot, the cup and saucer sets, the fruit and dessert bowls, the serving and vegetable bowls, the oval platter, the divided dish and gravy set, the covered butter dish and shakers, the two pitchers, the sugar, creamer and celery tray lot, the cookie jar, the bud vase, and the wine goblets. Sold as a lot of 1 piece. Description Divided oval vegetable dish, wide shallow oval form with a scalloped and slightly ruffled rim, a raised molded divider running the short way across the center, and two equal serving compartments. Long axis measures approximately 10-1/2 to 11 inches and the short axis approximately 8 inches per the tape-measure photographs. On both overhead measuring shots the tape hook plate rests on the table above the rim rather than hooked on the edge of the dish, and the camera is looking down at an angle, so both of these figures should be treated as close estimates rather than exact readings. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs. Overall height measures approximately 2-1/4 inches per the profile tape-measure photograph. The hook again rests on the table beside the dish rather than on the piece, so this figure is likewise a close estimate. Decoration: two large open roses and rosebud clusters at each end of the interior rim, leaves and branch vine carried around the full rim, matching roses and leaves on the exterior wall, and a brushed olive-green line along the scalloped rim edge. Molded relief on the flowers and leaves, hand-painted in the pattern's pink, yellow, green, and brown palette. Mark: brown dotted-oval backstamp with GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. around the top ring, Franciscan in script over EARTHENWARE, a small , and MADE IN U.S.A. along the bottom ring, with a struck character below the oval that reads approximately M or H and a lightly struck sideways number to the right of the oval that is not clearly legible in the photograph. No paper label is present. No INTERPACE ring, no OVEN SAFE or COLOR FAST wording, and no England or Portugal wording appears on the underside. Small unglazed stilt points are visible on the underside, normal to production. Attribution note Franciscan is the dinnerware line of Gladding, McBean & Co. of Los Angeles, California. Desert Rose was introduced in 1941 and became the best-selling American dinnerware pattern ever produced, remaining in California production into the mid-1980s. The earliest Desert Rose marks are dark circular stamps reading Franciscan, Made in California U.S.A., Hand Decorated, Gladding, McBean & Co., used from the 1940s into the early 1950s. The brown dotted oval seen on this dish, with the Gladding, McBean & Co. top ring and Franciscan over EARTHENWARE, is the following generation of mark. After the company was absorbed into Interpace Corporation in the early 1960s the backstamps changed to an INTERPACE ring with a date-style number plus OVEN SAFE and COLOR FAST wording, and later Wedgwood-era pieces read England or Portugal - none of which is present here, which keeps this piece in the earlier California period. Mark chronology and form identification follow the published Franciscan reference material from Replacements, Ltd., the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive, and Lehner's encyclopedia of United States pottery marks. Identification, dating, and the form call are offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion and are not guaranteed. Bid on the item as pictured. Condition Used vintage condition, sold as-is, described only from what is visible in the photographs. Both compartments show faint gray utensil scuffing and light serving wear across the glazed well. Scattered small dark specks and tiny tan-brown flecks are visible in the well and on the interior rim, some of which app