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| Medici Society | |
|---|---|
| Name | Medici Society |
| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1910 |
| Founder | Leonard H. Shave (founder) |
| Headquarters | London, England |
| Products | Art prints, postcards, reproductions, engravings |
| Industry | Publishing, Fine Art Reproduction |
Medici Society The Medici Society is a London-based art publishing and reproduction firm established in the early 20th century that specialized in fine art prints, postcards, and artist representation. It became known for issuing high-quality reproductions of works by historical painters and contemporary illustrators, supplying museums, galleries, and private collectors. Over decades the firm intersected with institutions and artists across Britain and continental Europe, contributing to tastes shaped by the Edwardian art market and later 20th-century exhibitions.
The firm was founded in 1910 during the reign of King Edward VII by Leonard H. Shave and quickly engaged with the networks of dealers and institutions that included Christie's, Sotheby's, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Early catalogues featured prints after works in collections such as the National Gallery, London and the Tate Gallery. During the interwar years the company issued series that capitalized on public interest in Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite subjects associated with figures like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt. In the 1930s and 1940s Medici printed postcards and art reproductions that circulated alongside publications by The Studio (magazine) and collaborations with galleries such as the Grafton Galleries. World War II presented logistical challenges affecting distribution networks including links to publishers in Paris, Berlin, and New York City; postwar recovery involved renewed ties to collectors connected with the British Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, and provincial museums. By the late 20th century the firm adapted to changing markets influenced by exhibitions like those at the Courtauld Gallery and loan programmes from the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Medici issued a range of commercial and scholarly outputs: limited edition prints, chromolithographs, photogravures, and illustrated postcards often reproducing works by canonical artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and Rembrandt van Rijn. Product lines included series aimed at popular consumption and specialist portfolios marketed to institutions like the Ashmolean Museum and Scottish National Gallery. The company produced exhibition catalogues that accompanied retrospectives of artists represented by dealers such as Thomas Agnew & Sons and connected to shows at venues including Dulwich Picture Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery. Medici's postcards entered retail circuits alongside offerings from firms like Raphael Tuck & Sons and were distributed through department stores such as Harrods and Selfridges as well as through bookshops tied to the British Library. Special editions celebrated anniversaries of painters like John Constable and J. M. W. Turner and appeared in scholarship contexts referenced by curators from institutions like the London Transport Museum and the Imperial War Museum.
Over its history Medici collaborated with a broad roster of painters, illustrators, engravers, and authors. In the sphere of contemporary artists and illustrators its catalogues featured names akin to Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, and Walter Sickert in the way the firm curated image series, while classical reproductions referenced masters such as Caravaggio, Pietro Perugino, and Albrecht Dürer. Photographers, mezzotint engravers, and lithographers involved in production connected to workshops associated with The Fine Art Society and printmakers from the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. Critics and writers who supplied text for publications included figures tied to publications like The Burlington Magazine and art historians active at institutions including the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Warburg Institute.
Medici's editorial and production choices reflected an aesthetic continuity with late Victorian and Edwardian collecting habits emphasizing narrative painting, portraiture, and Old Master replication. Its reproductions often favored tonal fidelity, fine paper stock, and colour processes resonant with techniques used by firms that supplied museums and aristocratic collections such as those of The National Trust estates. By disseminating images of works by Gustav Klimt, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet alongside Pre-Raphaelite and academic painters, the firm participated in shaping public reception of both modernist and traditional canons. Collectors, curators, and educators used Medici prints in teaching environments at institutions like University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, and prints entered domestic interiors influenced by exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and commercial shows at galleries including Agnew's.
Medici operated as a private company with commercial relationships spanning dealers, museums, retail chains, and overseas distributors in cities such as New York City, Paris, and Berlin. Its business model combined limited editions for collectors and mass-run postcards for tourist markets, paralleling strategies used by companies like A&C Black and Cassell. Changes in copyright law, printing technology, and museum reproduction policies in the late 20th century affected operations, prompting diversification into licensing and partnerships with photographic archives such as those allied to the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Getty Research Institute. The firm’s legacy persists in public and private collections where Medici-issued prints document provenance histories and exhibition practices; these holdings appear in auction records at Bonhams and citations in catalogues raisonnés for painters represented in its catalogues. Category:Publishing companies of the United Kingdom