WoW!  I LOVE These dishes!! The bowls are exactly the bowls I had been looking for, as they are oversized..I will use them for salad bowls..or soup bowls...they have a wide brim that makes it easy to handle. These dishes are heavy not thin and fragile so we like that. The bottems of the plates and bowls are dark chocolate brown, the centers are tones of creamy tans, and the brim is a flat slate gray with shiny black rose patterns. The cups are not black as I thought..instead, they are flat slate  dark gray  with the dark chocolate color thats shiny on the inside. Downside..they show every fingerprint when handling them. Black cups in my opinion would be better with these dishes. Overall, I ordered 2 sets.. They show off very well with our smokey glassware & Italian kitchen. We will be ordering a 3rd set !