Books-only for 34 years, then canvas—name the 1744 firm

From Folios to Fortunes

Samuel Baker founded the house in 1744 on the Strand in London, auctioning the library of Sir John Stanley for £826. For three decades Baker sold only books—rare folios, theological tracts, scientific manuscripts—building a reputation among collectors who trusted his cataloging. When Baker died in 1778, his nephew John Sotheby inherited the business and immediately expanded: that same year he held the first auction that included paintings, selling works from an estate collection alongside the usual leather-bound volumes. The art sold, but books remained the core business. Sotheby continued running book auctions for another century while rivals like Christie's, founded in 1766, built reputations as art specialists from day one.

The Reluctant Pivot

Sotheby's didn't hold a dedicated fine art sale until 1913, 169 years after founding. The delay wasn't caution—it was category dominance. By 1900 Sotheby's controlled Britain's rare book market, moving first editions and illuminated manuscripts for record sums while art sales remained a side business tacked onto estate liquidations. But the Edwardian boom in Old Master paintings forced the firm's hand: collectors wanted specialists, and Christie's was winning. In 1913 Sotheby's hired its first painting expert, opened a dedicated art department, and began cataloging works with the same scholarly rigor it applied to incunabula. Within a decade art sales outpaced books. By 1960 a Rembrandt sold at Sotheby's for £760,000, more than the firm's entire book revenue that year. The bookseller had become an art dealer by accident of demand.

The Catalog Gambit

Sotheby's competitive edge was never the gavel—it was the catalog. Samuel Baker's 1744 sale came with a printed list describing each lot, a rarity when most auctions were verbal free-for-alls. Collectors could study the offerings at home, plan their bids, and trust the descriptions. By 1800 Sotheby's catalogs were reference works: libraries bought them to track rare book provenance, and bidders paid subscriptions for advance copies. When the firm finally embraced art in 1913, it applied the same method—detailed condition reports, provenance research, scholarly essays—turning auction catalogs into collectibles themselves. A 1958 Sotheby's catalog for the Goldschmidt collection, seven Impressionist paintings sold in 21 minutes for £781,000, became a design landmark. Competitors sold art; Sotheby's sold certified stories with pictures attached, and the markup funded a century of dominance.

The Franchise Model That Ate the Market

Sotheby's stayed British until 1955, when it opened a New York office and turned auctioneering into a transatlantic business. The move capitalized on U.S. tax law: American collectors facing estate taxes needed quick liquidity, and Sotheby's offered consignment auctions with global buyer reach. By 1964 the New York branch was selling $10 million annually, more than the London headquarters. The firm went public in 1977, then expanded into Hong Kong, Geneva, and Dubai, franchising the Sotheby's name to local specialists who moved everything from Chinese ceramics to Saudi daggers. Today it runs 80 locations and posts $8 billion in annual sales, but the model is unchanged: take a commission on both sides, publish an authoritative catalog, and let scarcity drive the bidding. A book auctioneer from 1744 would recognize every piece except the lot—NFTs instead of bibles, but the same margin on provenance and hype.