William Notman's Photographic Selections (1863)
Over the years I have researched various portrait photographs by William Notman (1826–1891) held by the Notman Photographic Archives at the McCord Museum of Canadian History. This led to an enquiry into his publishing ventures and the marketing of photography. The first of his four publications was Photographic Selections, a portfolio published by the Montreal printer John Lovell in 1863 for approximately 360 subscribers. It was also the first art history book printed in Canada. The selection of forty-seven plates included two of his own landscape images, Fort Chambly, near Montreal, qc , 1863 and Road Side, Lake of Two Mountains, as well as ten photographic copies of engravings after Renaissance and Baroque paintings and twenty-seven photographs of pictures by contemporary British, French and American artists, some of which came from local collectors. The remaining eight images of recent British and North American paintings in Montreal collections were originally photographed by Notman.