4 Franciscan Desert Rose Saucers
Updated September 5, 2026
| Lot number | 179 |
| Auction | Hancock Estate Auction |
| Date | September 25, 2026 at 9:30 AM CDT |
| Auction house | Harrison Auction & Realtor |
| Location | Gracemont, Oklahoma |
FOUR FRANCISCAN DESERT ROSE SAUCERS - HAND-PAINTED CALIFORNIA EARTHENWARE Four small Franciscan Desert Rose pieces in hand-painted California earthenware, approximately 6-1/2 inches in diameter, with the pattern's molded scalloped rim, raised relief rose-and-vine border, and a shallow molded center well. The well ring reads as a teacup seat, so these are catalogued here as saucers, though a bidder using them as bread and butter or dessert plates will find them equally at home. Each carries the full border treatment: opened pink wild roses with bright yellow centers dotted in dark brown, closed pink buds, green leaves, and a thorny olive-brown vine wrapping the rim. The undersides carry the brown dotted-oval Franciscan mark with the GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. name in the top ring, which places them in the pre-Interpace California production run. These pair directly with the Desert Rose cup and saucer sets, dinner plates, bowls, gravy boat, and cookie jar offered elsewhere in this sale, so a bidder assembling a service can pick up matching pieces across several lots. Sold as a lot of four pieces. Description Four (4) matching Franciscan Desert Rose saucers, glazed earthenware, round with a molded scalloped and lightly waved rim Each measures approximately 6-1/2 inches in diameter per the tape-measure photograph, with the hook set at the near rim and the far rim edge falling between the 6-1/4 and 6-1/2 inch marks. Shallow molded center well with a raised circular ridge of the type used to seat a teacup foot; the well interior is plain cream white Decoration is the standard Desert Rose border in raised relief under a glossy glaze: opened five-petal pink roses with elongated yellow centers dotted in dark brown, closed pink buds, green leaves in two tones, and a continuous thorny olive to yellow-brown vine following the scalloped rim Rim edges carry the pattern's olive to brown vine wash Undersides are glazed white with a recessed foot ring and small round stilt or kiln-support points, which are normal firing artifacts of manufacture rather than damage Backstamp, photographed close up and enhanced, is the brown dotted oval reading GLADDING, McBEAN & CO. in the top ring, MADE IN U.S.A. in the bottom ring, with the copyright and registered symbols beside Franciscan in script over EARTHENWARE, and a small faint letter struck beneath the bottom ring Below the oval is a faint hand-painted line of roughly four characters, reading approximately 6 D 7 6, that is not clearly legible even after enhancement. These are decorator or line marks and are not readable with confidence from 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. The mark sequence is well documented by Replacements, Ltd. and the Gladding, McBean Franciscan archive: the earliest strike
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