Unidentified Studio (Possibly Notman & Fraser, Toronto, Ontario) 

The authorship of this photograph is something of a riddle.

This albumen print was mounted on a thick chocolate-brown mount, but curiously the photograph covers the imprint of “Millman, Successor to Eckerson & Millman, Hamilton (Ontario).” Over the years, the ink from the printed credit has caused the albumen print above it to lighten, resulting in a ghostly version of the original imprint.

John J. Millman was listed in the Hamilton directories as a “photographic painter” with the firm of Eckerson & Millman in 1876. A decade after that, in early 1886, he purchased the former business of the Notman & Fraser studio of Toronto. Millman sold that business about a year and a half later, in the fall of 1887. Subsequent owners of the studio marked their products with the legend “Notman & Fraser Negatives Preserved.” So perhaps this image originated with the Notman & Fraser firm but was printed by Millman or a successor –who chose to cover the outdated inscription on a printed mount rather than see it go to waste.