Joseph Smith Photograph of the Prophet Discovered by Descendants

Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s photo discovered by descendant after nearly 180 years

Descendants of the prophet Joseph Smith, along with some historians, believe they have found a daguerreotype of Joseph Smith. The announcement was made on Thursday in the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal.

Daniel Larsen inherited a number of family heirlooms after the death of his mother in 1992. He is the great-great-grandson of Joseph Smith. Among them was a watch that he was unable to open. In 2020, Larsen found the watch he had set aside and forgotten about and tried again to open it. When he did, he felt he had found an image of Joseph Smith. Daguerreotypes were made on iodine-sensitized metal plates and used mercury vapors to develop the images, captured with light.

“In my opinion, there’s absolutely no question that it’s Joseph,” Larsen said, as reported by Deseret News. “I looked at it and I looked at it and saw those eyes. I told my wife to come in and look at this. We looked at it and … almost at the same time said, ‘This is a photo of Joseph Smith.’”

For the last two years, Larsen and Lachlan Mackay, a member of the Community of Christ’s Council of the Twelve Apostles and Larsen’s nephew, have sought to verify the daguerreotype’s authenticity. They worked with Ronald Romig, an archivist for the Community of Christ who has over 30 years of experience researching visual materials relating to Joseph Smith and the greater Smith family.

Both Larsen and Mackay now believe the daguerreotype is of Joseph Smith. They also believe the photo was taken by Lucian Foster, a convert to the Church who lived with the Smith family before the martyrdom. Mackay shared that Joseph Smith III repeatedly claimed Foster had made a daguerreotype of his father.

“ The family believed that there was one made, and there have been historians from both traditions (Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who believe that there was one somewhere in the Joseph Smith III family,” he said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement regarding the daguerreotype.

“Every few years, potential donors bring artifacts to the Church History Library for review, including alleged photographs of the prophet Joseph Smith. Such artifacts are, of course, of great interest to the church. Though it was not mentioned specifically in the article, church historians, archivists and artifact experts were provided — by the item’s owner and the article’s authors — the opportunity to analyze the locket and photo and to review their findings prior to publication. We concur that the daguerreotype and locket were created of the materials and methods appropriate to the 1840s. However, as nothing is definitively known about the locket’s history before 1992, we cannot draw a conclusion about who is pictured in the daguerreotype. We welcome the recent publication of the image and hope it will prompt the discovery of additional information helpful to determining its authenticity.”