A recently found daguerreotype of Henry Dunant

Abstract

There are very few extant photographs of Henry Dunant. In an article printed in 1959, Bernard Gagnebin gave a list of seven portraits, while Daisy Mercanton in 1971 found there were eleven, plus one painting on enamel by Charles Dunant. Most of them portray Henry Dunant in the last years of his life at Heiden; three on 12 August 1895, two in 1901, and the last in 1908. In fact there are now only five known pictures of Dunant as a young man in the days of his prosperity. Apart from the portrait recently discovered by the Henry Dunant Institute, there are the two photographs taken at the time when the Red Cross was founded, two others in 1855 when Dunant was 27 years old, and only one around 1850, showing Dunant in the company of Jean-Gabriel Eynard and his wife.