MercierART
Classical Figurative Sculpture

Edition Sizes

Modern sculpture is generally produced in editions, that is many waxes are pulled from the mold and cast so that there are many copies or replicas of these pieces.  In the past mold materials were slightly degraded with each wax that was pulled from the mold, this was caused by small pieces of the mold sticking to wax when it was pulled out of the mold.  After a dozen pieces were pulled from the mold the waxes began to have less detail in the surface. This was because the details in the mold were being eroded a little each time a new was pulled. As a result of this erosion of the mold low edition #’s 1-4 were more highly prized that later edition sizes #’s 8-12.   In the mid 1970 mold materials that have very little erosion have become common, and artist frequently discount the first part of the editions to sell enough pieces to pay the costs. As the editions began to sell they raised the price to slow down sales to keep the editions they were pulling a part of their portfolio of works.  This has lead to the reverse trend of sculpture editions going up in price with the last numbers sell for 10 times or more for the final pieces in a popular edition.  This loss of detail has also lead to much larger edition sizes, instead of 12 pieces it may-be and edition of 5000. The larger the size of the editions of a casting of sculpture the lower the initial cost of the works, smaller edition sizes are often prized by collectors because the piece are rarer and have much greater potential for high appreciation if the artist gains great popularity.  It is more common to have large edition sizes with smaller works and smaller edition sizes with larger works. (Burgers of Calais.) If an artist gains huge popularity and there is great demand for their work editions are sometime re-released by the heirs of the artist, after the artist is gone.  As an example Fredrick Remington, had many of his sculptures editions re-released by his heirs in the 1980’s when there was a huge surge in western dress and such.  These “official” reproductions of limited editions were widely available in places like PRICE CLUB for under a thousand dollars.  It was speculated that these would greatly decrease the value of the earlier limited editions of Remington’s work.  As it turned out the unlimited reproductions were easily distinguishable from the original editions as not being of equal quality of detail and did not have the negative impact anticipated.