---
title: "Maquette"
description: "A scale model of a proposed artwork, made so selection panels, engineers, and the artist can judge the idea in three dimensions before fabrication."
glossary: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary"
source: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/maquette"
---

# Maquette

> A scale model of a proposed artwork, made so selection panels, engineers, and the artist can judge the idea in three dimensions before fabrication.

Glossary: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary  
Source: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/maquette

The maquette is usually the deliverable finalists are paid an honorarium to
produce, and it earns its keep several times over: panels judge from it,
engineers check structure against it, fundraisers photograph it, and
fabricators scale from it.

Maquettes are also artworks in their own right: collectors buy them, and
museums exhibit them. A program should decide deliberately what happens to
finalists' maquettes (returned, purchased, archived) and put it in the call,
rather than leaving a box of small sculptures in a storage room to become
someone's problem in a decade.

Related terms: [Commission](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/commission), [Fabrication](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/fabrication), [Selection panel](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/selection-panel), [Honorarium](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/honorarium)