Franciscan Desert Rose Gravy Boat

FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE GRAVY BOAT WITH MATCHING OVAL UNDERPLATE - GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. A handsome two-piece Franciscan Desert Rose gravy service consisting of the double-lipped pedestal gravy boat and its matching scalloped oval underplate. The boat has the classic sauce-boat profile with a pinched spout at each end, a swept upward-curving rim, and a stepped oval pedestal foot, decorated on both sides with the pattern's hand-painted roses - one side showing a fully opened pink wild rose with a dotted yellow center, the other a large closed pink bud - carried on a brown thorny vine with two-tone green leaves. The oval underplate repeats the leafy vine around a molded scalloped rim with the pattern's olive-brown rim wash, and its center is left plain to seat the boat. The underplate carries the earlier brown Gladding, McBean & Co. dotted-oval backstamp, placing this service in the older California-made period of the pattern rather than the later Interpace years. Serving pieces are always the harder part of a Desert Rose service to assemble, and this gravy boat coordinates with the Desert Rose dinner plates, bowls, cup and saucer sets, platter, and other serving pieces offered elsewhere in this sale. Excellent for holiday table use or china cabinet display. Description Gravy boat with matching oval underplate, Franciscan Desert Rose pattern, glazed earthenware Boat form: elongated oval sauce boat with a pinched pouring lip at each end, an upswept and gently waved rim, and a stepped oval pedestal foot; no handle, as made for this pattern Boat measures approximately 3-1/2 inches tall as it sits on the underplate and approximately 8-1/2 inches from spout tip to spout tip per the tape-measure photographs. The tape was laid in front of and alongside the pieces rather than pressed against them, so bidders should treat these as close estimates and verify all dimensions from the photographs Underplate measures approximately 9 inches long and approximately 6-1/4 inches wide per the tape photographs; the underplate's rim depth and the boat's interior depth were not measured with the tape Decoration on the boat: an opened five-petal pink rose with an elongated yellow center dotted in dark brown on one face, a large closed pink bud on the reverse, both on a brown thorny branch with broad green leaves in two tones and small green sepals; pedestal foot and interior are plain cream Decoration on the underplate: green leaves and brown vine following the molded scalloped rim with the pattern's olive to brown rim wash, at least one pink bud visible on the border, plain cream center well with soft shaping rings Underplate underside is fully glazed white with a recessed oval foot ring and small round stilt or kiln-support points, which are normal firing artifacts of the manufacturing process rather than damage Underplate backstamp, photographed close up, reads in a brown dotted oval: GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. around the upper ring and MADE IN U.S.A. down the lower right of the ring, with a small at each side and, inside the oval, the script Franciscan over EARTHENWARE. A small single letter appears at the lower right of the oval, and to the right of the oval is a faint hand-painted line of several characters that is not legible in the photographs The underside of the gravy boat itself was not photographed, so its mark, if any, is not shown. Gravy boats in this pattern are sometimes unmarked or only faintly marked 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. 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 this underplate does, predate the INTERPACE ring marks and are generally regarded as the earlier and more collected strike. Later Wedgwood-era Desert Rose marks read England or Portugal rather than U.S.A. Replacements, Ltd. catalogs and the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive both document this progression of marks and the raised relief hand-painted rose border that defines the pattern. The hand-painted characters beside the oval are a decorator or line-worker notation rather than a date code. The mark reading, pattern identification, era, and all dimensions given here 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. The glaze is bright and glossy, the cream ground is clean, and the hand-painted decoration is strong with good color. No chips, cracks, or breaks were observed in the photographs. Expect light overall use wear, including faint utensil and serving marks in the boat's interior and light scuffing on the underplate's center where the boat's foot rests. A few faint tan or gray marks and scattered pi