Moorcroft purchased Kingsley Enamels in August 1998, before changing the name to Moorcorft Enamels in January 1999. There was a period of frantic activity while many different pieces were prepared ready for the launch in mid-1999. Moorcroft were anxous to recreate some of William Moorcroft's designs from their archives and Steve was asked to go to Stoke with Barbara Hall to look at the possibilities and to prepare some trial pieces.

Moorcroft were anxious to create a freehand painted "look" although the ranges that went into production were transfer printed to a degree. A transfer was used to create an outline in a buff-brown colour that would be hidden when the piece was painted.

Pomegranate, Spanish, Pansy and Moonlit Blue appeared in the first catalogue of 1999. As this was a new venture and a new approach to painting enamels involving quite a few painters, the quality was quite variable. Attempts were even made to create a tube-lined effect (as on the pottery) on some pieces using white paint! From my own observations the Spanish pattern seemed to cause the most problems and some pieces were really quite crude and the design was quickly dropped.

Steve, as Head painter, did paint one or two of the production pieces of each range so anyone with a production piece bearing the initials SS has quite a rarity (and probably one of the better pieces of the edition). The early pieces were painted in the old Kingsley factory in Bromsgrove before the company moved to Worcester.

Pomegranate was released in the catalogue range on a wide range of shapes but never on the 46 shape. The trial piece illustrated and dated 4.11.98 is therefore interesting. The piece is also unusual in that it is marked 1/F, which would normally indicate that it had only been taken as far as the first fire. When pieces were prepared for production it was normal practice to produce pieces at the first fire and final stages to use as "standards" for the paintresses. However the piece illustrated appears to have been finished at a later stage by further painting and firing, although Steve has no recollection of being asked to do so.

The piece is also unusual in that Steve would normally sign as S. SMITH or SS and not STEVE S.

A finished pieceon this shape is one of five enamel pieces illustrated in the Moorcroft Collectors Club Newsletter of December 1998 under the title "Moorcorft in Lilliput: Vision of things to come".