This pictorial composition of two children wearing identical sailor suits while one launches a sailboat in the pond of a Japanese Garden is by an unknown photographer. A portrait of the same child (launching the boat) now in a private collection who wears a slightly different suit from the same era was photographed in a formal  pose by the Fred Hartsook Studio of San Francisco | Los Angeles. The setting for this photograph may also be a constructed setting inside a studio as part of the background at far right may be a painted backdrop.

It is possible the children were professional models doing some type of catalog work. Further insight is welcome.

condition: print recto:  silvering and surface abrasions

print verso: adhesive remnants to all margins. in graphite: # 573

Fred Hartsook: 1876-1930

Fred Hartsook (26 October 1876 – 30 September 1930) was an American photographer and owner of a California studio chain described as “the largest photographic business in the world” at the time,[1] who counted Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Mary Pickford, and sitting President Woodrow Wilson among his celebrity clients. He later became the owner of the Hartsook Inn, a resort in Humboldt County, and two ranches in Southern California on which he reared prized Holstein cattle. Hartsook was married to Bess Hesby, queen of the San Francisco Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1915. (1.)

1. Fred Hartsook: Wikipedia accessed March, 2015