3 Desert Rose Cup Sets
Updated September 5, 2026
| Lot number | 163 |
| Auction | Hancock Estate Auction |
| Date | September 25, 2026 at 9:30 AM CDT |
| Auction house | Harrison Auction & Realtor |
| Location | Gracemont, Oklahoma |
HREE FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE CUPS AND SAUCERS - HAND-DECORATED GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. CALIFORNIA EARTHENWARE - ONE CUP WITH A HAIRLINE CRACK Three cup and saucer sets in Franciscan Desert Rose, America's best-known hand-painted dinnerware pattern. Each cup is a low, wide-bowled form on a small foot with the pattern's distinctive molded green branch handle, and each is hand painted with open pink wild roses, rosebuds, glossy green leaves, and tan thorn-and-twig sprays over a warm off-white glaze. The saucers repeat the rose band around a scalloped, embossed twig-molded rim with the soft green edge line. Bright, cheerful, and instantly recognizable - perfect for filling gaps in an existing Desert Rose service, adding to a cup-and-saucer collection, or setting a country table. Sold as a lot of six pieces: three cups and three saucers. Description Three cups: Desert Rose teacup form, wide flared bowl on a small ringed foot, with the molded and green-glazed branch handle. Each measures approximately 2-1/4" tall and approximately 3-3/4" to 4" across the rim per the tape-measure photographs. Three saucers: round with a scalloped, embossed twig-and-leaf molded rim and a recessed cup well, measuring approximately 6" to 6-1/4" in diameter per the tape-measure photographs. Bidders should verify all dimensions from the photographs. Decoration is hand painted under the glaze - open five-petal pink roses with yellow-and-black stamen centers, pink buds, green leaves in two tones, and brown-tan thorny stems, finished with a soft green wash along the saucer rim. Cup backstamp: small brown printed mark reading MADE IN / U.S.A. with a small character below, which is the abbreviated mark Franciscan used on cups. Saucer backstamp: circular black mark reading FRANCISCAN in Gothic lettering around MADE IN / CALIFORNIA / U.S.A., over HAND DECORATED, over GLADDING, McBEAN & CO., with OVEN-SAFE around the lower edge. Attribution note Franciscan Desert Rose was introduced in 1941 by Gladding, McBean & Co. of Los Angeles and went on to become the best-selling American dinnerware pattern ever made, produced in California into the mid-1980s before later production moved overseas under the Wedgwood era. Replacements, Ltd. catalogs the California-made USA-marked pieces as the earlier and generally more desirable production. The circular "Gladding, McBean & Co." backstamp seen on these saucers is one of the earlier Franciscan marks, used before the company's later corporate-name marks, which places these sets in the earlier decades of production. Dating is offered as the consignor's photo-based opinion drawn from the backstamp and is not guaranteed. Bid on the items as pictured. Condition Used vintage condition, sold as-is. One cup has a hairline crack in the glazed underside: a fine line running in from the foot ring across the base for roughly three-quarters of an inch, with a short branching fork near its end. It is clearly visible in the base close-up photographs a
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