Samuel Sotheby

Samuel Sotheby (1771–1842) was an English auctioneer and antiquary.

The firm became Leigh, Sotheby, & Son in 1800, when John Sotheby's nephew Samuel joined it, and so continued till 1803. After 1803, and until the death of Leigh in 1815, the firm carried on their business at a new address, 145 Strand. John Sotheby died in 1807, and on Leigh's death, eight years later, Samuel continued the concern by himself, moving to 3 Waterloo Street, Strand, about 1817. Soon afterwards he took his son Samuel Leigh Sotheby into partnership, and in 1826 Messrs. Sotheby & Son printed a Catalogue of the Collections sold by Messrs. Baker, Leigh, & Sotheby from 1744 to 1826.

Sotheby was interested the history of printing. He began to trace facsimiles of early printed books in 1814. After a visit to the Netherlands in 1824 to examine specimens at Haarlem for his friend William Young Ottley, his attention was first specially directed to block books. His collections were edited by his son as The Typography of the Fifteenth Century, 1845, and Principia Typographica, 1858, 3 vols.

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