Samuel Leigh Sotheby (1805-1861)
The third and final generation of the Sotheby family to be involved with the famous auction house.
Samuel Leigh was the grandson of bookseller and auctioneer John Sotheby, who helped establish the celebrated auction house that still bears the family’s name.
The cover of the 1788 Leigh & Sotheby catalogue for a sale of items from the British Museum. (Credit: Wellcome Collection)
John’s son Samuel expanded and rebranded the family business, then Samuel took on his own son, Samuel Leigh. Father and son worked well together. Samuel Leigh proved to be a good businessman, and was responsible for many of their finest catalogues. However, the company got into difficulties in 1825 and was declared bankrupt.
A page from the catalogue of the Stowe House library, in Buckinghamshire, which was sold by auction by Messrs. S. Leigh Sotheby & Co. in January 1849. (Credit: Wellcome Collection)
Samuel Leigh changed the company name to S L Sotheby in 1837 and, when his father died five years later, took on his accountant John Wilkinson as a partner. John was a great salesman, and Samuel produced beautiful auction catalogues. Between them, they rebuilt the business into the premier auction house for antiquarian books.
Sotheby’s Auction House in London today. (Credit: Sothebys1744 / Wikimedia Commons)
Samuel Leigh also edited and completed books begun by his father, and wrote and published his own work, including a volume on John Milton’s autographs. He was a great collector too, particularly of auction house and library catalogues, and the works of English artists.
The angel leading the blind figures appears to be based on an illustration by Stephen Francis Rigaud, an artist and illustrator inspired by poet John Milton’s work. The image appeared on the first edition cover of Sotheby’s book, ‘Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton’ (1861). (Credit: Greywolf)
Samuel Leigh died tragically and unexpectedly in June 1861. He was walking near Buckfast Abbey in Devon, when he fell into the River Dart and drowned.
Further information
(Credit: Greywolf)
(Credit: ClipArtQueen.com)
