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Posted By: Hankron

Two points.

Unless there is specific information (stamping, embossment, markings, provenance), it's difficult to impossible to say that such and such a photograph was the actual photograph used in the making of a card or print or whatever. Realize that a studio may have made a varity of a particular photograph, for varying uses, and only one would have been the actual art for a photo. I'm not saying that these are not the originals for the cards, but that one cannot say 'This is the same picture as on the card, so this photo has to be the proof.' Substantiation proof is needed. This view is backed by the fact that many of the 'N167' images were used on other products, including a newspaper woodcut.

Two: if these were the original photographs, they would be the 'original art' not 'proofs.' Meaning, they would be the original photographs that the woodcutter used to make the designs for the N167s.
A proof is basically a test print or test photograph, and not the original art.