[Antiques] A numbered collection of forty four vintage photographs featuring 397 separate numbered items of stock

Sidney Edward LETTS (1868-1940, cabinet maker, furniture and antiques dealer, of Great Russell Street, London, UK). – [Unknown photographer, circa 1915 or earlier]

A numbered collection of forty four vintage photographs featuring 397 separate numbered items, mostly furniture, most in room settings, each photograph on a separate card mount. Each with associated mimeographed typescript list pasted to the verso of its mount describing each piece, giving a 4-figure stock number followed by a coded notation of the cost and asking price. [London, possibly Great Russell Street:] September 30th 1915 and earlier. Each mount 9 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches approx., photographs a little smaller.

Condition: mounts cut-down and bowed, damp damage, occasional small tears, light fading to the images.

A rare and valuable photographic record of the stock of one of the more successful pre-first war antiques dealers. Sidney Letts was a London dealer with a branch in New York city managed by Sidney’s brother Gerald who drowned on his way back to London aboard the Lusitania on 7th May 1915. The present work seems to have been prepared by the London establishment for use by New York, part of the annotation on the verso of the final 44th image reads: 'First Floor Back Room at 98 [Great Russell Street] ... Last Photograph Received up to Sept. 30th., 1915".