Sotheby's

British/American

BiographyAuction house founded in London by Samuel Baker (1713–78), a bookseller. His first recorded auction sale was of the library of Sir John Stanley on 11 March 1744 in the Great Room, over Exeter Exchange, in the Strand, London. While primarily selling books, from the start he included the fine arts. The business prospered, and Baker moved the firm to York Street, Covent Garden. His first sale there, in 1754, was of the library of the physician Dr Richard Mead, which was sold in two parts lasting 57 days and realized £5,508 10s. 11d. In 1767 Baker took George Leigh (1742–1816) into the firm, which then became Baker & Leigh. On Baker’s death in 1778, his nephew John Sotheby (1740–1807) inherited the business. The firm, renamed Leigh & Sotheby, continued to expand into other areas with the first of the seven sales of duplicate coins and books from the British Museum, London, in 1788 and the collection of paintings, bronzes, cameos and gems from Narborough Hall, Norfolk, in 1802. The book sales included the library of Charles-Meurice de Talleyrand-Périgord in 1793. John Sotheby’s son Samuel Sotheby (1781–1842) joined the firm in 1800. A disagreement between John Sotheby and Leigh led to the dissolution of their partnership in 1804. Leigh and Samuel Sotheby established themselves firstly at 145, the Strand, calling themselves Leigh & S. Sotheby, and then in 1818 they moved to 3 Waterloo Bridge Street (later 13 Wellington Street), where the firm was to remain until 1917.

During the 19th century the firm built up a pre-eminent position as the auction house for books. In 1848, for example, the sale of the library from Stowe, Bucks, went to Leigh & Sotheby, while the remaining contents went to Christie & Manson. John Wilkinson (b 1803), who had joined the firm in 1825, became senior partner on the death of Samuel Leigh Sotheby (1805–61), son of Samuel Sotheby. In 1863 Edward Grose Hodge (d 1928) was appointed Wilkinson’s partner, and in 1864 the firm was styled Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. On Wilkinson’s death in 1885, he was succeeded by Hodge, who in turn was followed by his son Tom Hodge (d 1939). It was during this period that a close business relationship was established with the leading bookseller Bernard Quaritch. In 1910 Tom Hodge sold the firm to Sir Montague Barlow (d 1951), Felix Warre (1879–1953) and Geoffrey Hobson (1882–1949). The firm moved to its present headquarters at 33–34 New Bond Street in 1917. Experts, including Tancred Borenius, who joined the firm as an adviser in 1924, increased standards of scholarship.

In 1924 the firm’s name changed to Sotheby & Co. Under Warre, Hobson, Charles des Graz (1860–1940) and Charles Vere Pilkington (1905–1983) the company continued to grow. However, it was under Peter Wilson (1913–84), who was appointed Chairman in 1958, that the firm started to expand rapidly. The rise in the value of works of art was both foreseen and fostered by Wilson (see Art market and Investment). Among his early triumphs were the sale of the Goldschmidt collection in 1958 and the sale of Rubens’s Adoration of the Magi by the Trustees of the Grosvenor Estate in 1959; it now hangs in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Sotheby & Co. purchased the auctioneers Parke-Bernet of New York in 1964 and went on to open auction houses throughout the world. Sotheby’s Belgravia in Knightsbridge was a centre for the sale of Victorian and Edwardian art from 1971 to 1982. Sotheby & Co. became a public company in 1977, then the American businessman A. Alfred Taubman (b 1925) purchased the firm in 1983, and it reverted to being a private company, taking the name Sotheby’s. In 1988 Sotheby’s became once again a public company and the largest firm of art auctioneers to that date.

James Miller. "Sotheby’s." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T079852 (accessed May 2, 2012).

Person TypeInstitution