What is a Moorcroft Trial?
When a Moorcroft artist designs a piece, before the FINAL design for a Limited or Numbered Edition is "decided upon" - a few differing versions are produced. These are TRIALS.
The Koala vase pictured above, is a TRIAL, where the Moorcroft artist experimented with the toning of the Koala and the fine nature of the tubelining to make its fur.
Like in the Koala example mentioned above, in a TRIAL a tubeliner may experiment with the design or thickness of tubelining; the Designing artist may experiment with the appearance of the design or with colour and toning of the piece.
As Moorcroft Accredited Retailers who have even collaborated with the company on producing Australian Exclusive designs - we sometimes have the benefit of seeing designs in their TRIAL stage. We have seen TRIALS executed for the shape the design will appear on and even the colour of the base clay body that a design may appear on - all of these are necessary steps to get the design "right" in the Artists "eye".
Depending on the difficulty the Designing Artist has with the piece, sometimes there are a couple Trials produced - sometimes the Trial stage goes on for years!
TRIALS are produced for consideration by the Moorcroft Design Committee. Each TRIAL is unique in its own way but will differ slightly from the production version in most cases - unless it was the piece decided upon by the Committee to become the production design.
Trials are generally not produced at the same "level" of quality finish that a production piece would achieve - that is not the premise of a Moorcroft Trial.
A Trial is a true representation of the Moorcroft design - but a pre-production "working" version. For this reason very fastidious collectors may not like the finish of a TRIAL.
TRIALS are generally unique and collectable in their own right - some may be true one offs - and as an added bonus for collectors can generally be purchased at a discount to the final Limited Edition or Numbered Edition "production" versions.
The Koala vase pictured above, is a TRIAL, where the Moorcroft artist experimented with the toning of the Koala and the fine nature of the tubelining to make its fur.
Like in the Koala example mentioned above, in a TRIAL a tubeliner may experiment with the design or thickness of tubelining; the Designing artist may experiment with the appearance of the design or with colour and toning of the piece.
As Moorcroft Accredited Retailers who have even collaborated with the company on producing Australian Exclusive designs - we sometimes have the benefit of seeing designs in their TRIAL stage. We have seen TRIALS executed for the shape the design will appear on and even the colour of the base clay body that a design may appear on - all of these are necessary steps to get the design "right" in the Artists "eye".
Depending on the difficulty the Designing Artist has with the piece, sometimes there are a couple Trials produced - sometimes the Trial stage goes on for years!
TRIALS are produced for consideration by the Moorcroft Design Committee. Each TRIAL is unique in its own way but will differ slightly from the production version in most cases - unless it was the piece decided upon by the Committee to become the production design.
Trials are generally not produced at the same "level" of quality finish that a production piece would achieve - that is not the premise of a Moorcroft Trial.
A Trial is a true representation of the Moorcroft design - but a pre-production "working" version. For this reason very fastidious collectors may not like the finish of a TRIAL.
TRIALS are generally unique and collectable in their own right - some may be true one offs - and as an added bonus for collectors can generally be purchased at a discount to the final Limited Edition or Numbered Edition "production" versions.
- Robert Neilsen
