Church History

Revealed by Light: This daguerrean image was illuminated when Dan Larsen shined a pen light into the locket left to him by his mother Lois Smith Larsen, great-granddaughter of the Prophet Joseph.

There is no darkness
At all
That is not touched
By light.

– Donald Patrick Bradley, Jr. (1996-2025), from the poem “Of Warmth,” to be posthumously published in his collection Light of an Hour.

Dedication:

(Donnie – by Tea Marie Photography)

To poet, polymath, and philosopher, Donald Patrick Bradley, Jr., a brilliant light who flashed out of this world too quickly.

———

Before Joseph Smith’s great-granddaughter Lois Smith Larsen died in 1992, she passed on to her son Dan Larsen several Smith family heirlooms—including a locket, a picture locket whose broken clasp had kept it shut, hiding the picture within. Holding onto the locket for nearly three decades, he was unaware of the treasure it concealed. But the day the long forgotten daguerreotype photograph within the locket was brought to light could forever change how we see the founding Prophet of the Restoration.

Revealed in a Pillar of Light

In the early spring of 1820, Joseph Smith kneeled in a grove to pray, but was soon overcome by a fierce power, he reported, that bound his limbs and plunged him into darkness. Calling on God in desperation, the young man saw a pillar of light descend, out of which shined the faces of God the Father and Jesus Christ.

In the early spring of 2020, 200 years after the First Vision, another face emerged from darkness to light. When the Prophet’s great-great-grandson Dan Larsen at last succeeded in prying open the clasp of the picture locket his mother had left him, Larsen at first only saw a blank, brassy surface inside, where the forgotten image was etched but unseen. But when he procured a small flashlight and shined a “pillar of light” onto the locket a face appeared, one with piercing eyes and hair swept forward on the sides like the Prophet Joseph.

Revealed by Light: Echoing how the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the young Joseph in a burst of light, the image of a striking face etched by light and identified as Joseph’s has emerged from long obscurity.

Discovering a Smith Family Treasure Long Hidden in Darkness

The discovery of this daguerreotype among the heirlooms of the family of the Prophet Joseph Smith raises an immediate and obvious question about the man in the picture: Would we expect him to be anyone other than Joseph Smith himself?

Historical sources report that Joseph Smith was, indeed, photographed during his lifetime. Among others, his nephew Joseph F. Smith described a photograph of the Prophet Joseph. Writing just eleven years after the Prophet’s death, his nephew enumerated among the items he had lost in a recent fire “a deguarian likeness [daguerreotype] of my Father [Hyrum Smith][,] Unkle Joseph and Brigham Young, a present and priceless to me.”1 Other historical sources,

which we will cite in future publications, similarly describe daguerreotypes of the Prophet having been known to nineteenth-century observers. Yet, despite the historical evidence for photographs of Joseph Smith having been taken, finding and identifying such a photograph has proven challenging. Allowing such a historic treasure to be lost from memory seems so unthinkable that some have taken its unknown whereabouts as the primary evidence that it never existed to begin with.

Joseph Smith III, the son of the prophet, stated that after Emma’s death he inherited items in May 1885 that “included a daguerreotype of my father that I had forgotten was in existence.”2 We may extract from this statement two important points: first, the claim that a daguerreotype of Joseph Smith was in the Smith family possession; and second, the confession that within one generation it had somehow been forgotten.

Dan Larsen Holding Open the Locket: This heirloom was passed down in the Joseph Smith family, the image within eventually being forgotten. (Photos courtesy of Robert A. Boyd)

Joseph Smith III would later say this photograph was taken by Lucian Foster, a daguerreotypist who had come to Nauvoo, Illinois in the spring of 1844, staying in Joseph Smith’s house. Foster, a new Latter-day Saint convert, reportedly began capturing the images of Nauvoo residents.

The new convert would almost certainly have found no one’s image more important to capture than that of the founding prophet of the Restoration—in whose house he lived.

Attributing the Smith family daguerreotype to Lucian Foster and tracing the provenance of the Smith family locket back through the generations will be a matter for a subsequent article, but the chemical process used to create this image within can be dated to around one year of the Prophet Joseph’s death—the same time period when Foster did his photography in Nauvoo. The processes by which daguerreotypes were produced evolved quickly after the technology was introduced, and experts in historical photography have identified this one to have used a process dating to the tiny window of about 1843-1845, placing it at the correct time to be an image of the Prophet himself.3

A Record of Light Engraven on a Plate of Metal

During the 1823-1827 period that Joseph Smith annually visited the hill Cumorah to acquire the plates of gold on which the Book of Mormon was recorded, the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce experimented with photography and managed to record the first permanent photographic images, etched onto metal plates.

The “Photo-Graph” as a Record of Light: The daguerreotype was the earliest form of capturing a visual moment by registering a permanent record of patterns of light.

Niépce’s assistant, Louis Daguerre, extended his mentor’s method by polishing copper plates to a mirror finish and coating them with a silver compound that reacted to light. Daguerre then exposed these plates to light so they mirrored the scene in front of them, enabling them to capture traces of the scene on their silver surface. Treating these traces with mercury vapor then brought out the latent image. The light “written” or etched onto the metal plates was specifically ultraviolet light, invisible to the natural human eye. The development of the daguerreotype image thus rendered visible what was previously invisible, recording for the natural eye the “evidence of things not seen.”4

Translating Light to a Metal Plate: The process of creating a daguerreotype records the image by chemically etching or engraving the patterns of light into a metal plate.

An early experimenter described the miraculous process by which light could “write” itself on metal plates as a “photograph,” combining the Greek roots “photo” (light) and “graph” (writing).

The daguerreotype process was announced to the world in 1839, and by 1840 had spread to the United States where interest and usage quickly swept across the country. The material aspects of this new phenomenon unexpectedly echoed something that had burst onto the scene a decade before: the Book of Mormon. Only a few short years after the publication of this sacred record on gold plates, a different kind of permanent record of light on metal plates became commonly available as a record for posterity.

Joseph Smith would have been entirely unfamiliar with the photographic process being developed in France as he brought forth the Book of Mormon in the 1820s, but a description of that process would have had intriguing resonances with his experience of translating. The Book of Mormon’s characters were written on metal plates in engravings reportedly filled with a black stain that made them stand out. Those characters were then transformed into English and written out before his spiritual sight in “letters of light”, like the development of a photographic negative and evoking the literal meaning of the word “photograph.”5

Although the photograph would have been unfamiliar to Joseph Smith as he opened the Book of Mormon and translated it in the 1820s, it would have become familiar to him before the book of his own life closed in the 1840s.

A Striking Countenance Emerges from a Joseph Smith Family Heirloom

The Smith family locket containing the daguerreotype appears to the casual eye to be a pocket watch, and it seems that sometime after 1910 to have been mistaken for such. But the locket actually belongs to a tradition of keeping a memento mori of a lost loved one that can be worn as jewelry on one’s person, called a “mourning locket.” It would serve as a tangible, yet private, reminder of the departed.

In 1844, before the martyrdom, the Nauvoo artist Sutcliffe Maudsley painted a matching pair of portraits of Joseph and Emma. A few years later, after Joseph was killed, Maudsley again painted Emma’s portrait. Notably, in this portrait she is shown prominently wearing what appears to be a mourning locket—quite possibly the one later discovered by her great-great-grandson. Adorned with other accessories symbolic of mourning—the handkerchief and black dress that were the typical garb of a widow in 19th century America—it would have been fitting for Emma to have also worn the mourning locket in memory of Joseph.

Was the Smith Family Locket Worn as a Mourning Locket? Women of the Smith family each prominently wearing a locket for their portrait, shown counterclockwise: A) Emma Hale Smith depicted by artist Suttcliffe Maudsley, circa 1847; B) detail of the Smith Family Mourning Locket; C) Emma J. Smith McCallum, circa 1875; D) Emma J. Smith McCallum, circa 1879; E) Emma J. Smith McCallum, 1910; F) Bertha Madison Smith, circa 1869. (Photo of Smith family locket courtesy of Robert A. Boyd)

Visual evidence suggests this mourning locket was a privately cherished heirloom worn not only by Emma, but also by other female Smith family members across time. As discovered by Ron Romig and Joseph Smith descendant Lachlan MacKay, there are photos of Joseph III’s second wife, perhaps commemorating their wedding in 1869 wearing just such a locket. And there are photos also of Joseph III’s daughter by his first wife (Joseph Smith’s first grandchild) which appear to show her with the locket on the occasion of her wedding in 1875.6 It seems fitting that on such significant family occasions the women of the Smith family would wear a mourning locket that honored their prophet forefather.

At some point, however, the locket, which effectively hides from the casual observer the memorial it contains within, was effectively locked shut when its clasp broke. Yet even when the locket is opened, the daguerreotype, though permanently recorded, may not be immediately noticed. This could explain much about it being forgotten to later generations, particularly when combined with the broken clasp and, as we will describe in future publications, the locowner died suddenly and it was almost certainly passed on without an explanation of its full significance.

When the locket is opened, the brassy metal plate can appear blank, the faint metal etching hardly apparent to the eye until it is bathed in light. The enigmatic image appears when light catches on the tiny grooves engraved in the surface, revealing a striking countenance.

Daguerreotype Image Invisible vs Illuminated: On the left is the open locket without light shining directly onto the metal plate, then on the right is shown how the image is revealed when properly illuminated.

We then see a face without a name. On the human level, the man revealed by the light certainly appears to be a strong character and to have a penetrating gaze. And as the fashions and, more conclusively, the chemical composition of this daguerreotype reveal, it discloses the face of a man from the 1840s. Given that heirloom photographs are largely passed down in families because they depict a member of that family, we must revise our original question: Would we expect the man in the photograph to be any Smith of the 1840’s other than Joseph himself?

Who in the Smith Family Would This Depict?

Given that the daguerreotype dates to between 1842-1845 and is an heirloom of the Joseph Smith family, the most likely candidates, by a large margin, are the two most obvious and famous members of the family: Joseph and Hyrum.

For various reasons the four other Smith brothers are not strong candidates, and some not candidates at all. Joseph’s oldest brother, Alvin, and youngest brother, Don Carlos, both died (in 1823 and 1841 respectively) before the daguerreotype could have been taken. Samuel Smith, three years younger than Joseph, is unlikely to have been photographed instead of his more prominent brothers while they were living, and would have had little chance to have been photographed after the martyrdom because he died only a few weeks later. Joseph’s brother William lived the longest; yet the several extant photographs of William show a markedly different face than the one in the daguerreotype.

Hyrum is the brother who has been most conjectured to be the man in the daguerreotype, with some favoring this possibility even more than that of Joseph. But favoring Hyrum seems unrelated to anything known about the locket itself. The locket is clearly in the collection of the descendents of Joseph, not Hyrum. Given that Joseph and Hyrum died at the same time, if Hyrum could have been photographed in life, so could Joseph. Why would the less prominent Hyrum have been photographed and not his prophet brother? And why would Joseph’s descendants possess and preserve a photograph of his brother but not one of their own revered ancestor Joseph?

Yet the speculation that the daguerreotype is of Hyrum remains, and should be addressed more fully. Some have speculated the image is of Hyrum simply because the face does not fit prior expectations or even innate preferences we have for Joseph’s appearance. The face we see in the daguerreotype is unlike our traditional depictions of the Prophet. And because Joseph is an iconic figure, onto whom we project our own expectations, we tend to feel some stake in what he looked like, whereas we have little stake in the appearance of other members of his family.

In this enigmatic photo we see the face of a man who seems more warm-bloodedly human than how we have tended to picture Joseph in our artistic depictions. In this daguerreotype, we see a man firmly planted in our own mortal sphere.

It is difficult to let ourselves see that side of Joseph, free from all the implications and complications that come with the prophetic mantle. We thus tolerate naturalistic depictions of Hyrum more readily than of Joseph. Because we don’t burden Hyrum’s image with the superhuman expectations we project onto Joseph, we can more easily see Hyrum as obviously and idiosyncratically human, like the man depicted in this photograph.

Although it stands to reason that Joseph’s descendants are more likely to have preserved and passed down an image of Joseph than of Hyrum, both men should be considered as real candidates for the man pictured in the daguerreotype and must be considered systematically.

There is, of course, so much riding on the possibility of finally identifying a daguerreotype of Joseph. But how would we know it was actually of Joseph? Can we assess that likelihood from our subjective sense of what his face looked like?

Familiarity Without a Face: A Facial Construct Relying on Reputation & Caricature

Joseph Smith has become recognizable to us even without actual awareness of what his face looks like. Jesus Christ is, of course, familiar to us by appearance even though no photograph recorded his appearance, no death mask was made after his crucifixion, and no contemporaneous artistic depictions are known. We recognize imagery of Jesus because we have seen other similar artistic representations of Him, whether or not these images bear any true resemblance to the living Lord Himself. With Joseph Smith, certainly, we have had more information to go on regarding his appearance, but if the actual Joseph Smith walked into the room it would nonetheless be difficult to recognize his face based on paintings, or even on his death mask.

Indeed, as the following images show, much of our image of the Prophet Joseph is not based on his face at all. These images, from which Joseph’s face is entirely blurred out, are still “recognizable” as Joseph.

Various Recognized Paintings of Joseph Smith with the Faces Blurred Out: Each of these famous portraits identify Joseph Smith through indicators outside of his actual facial features and proportions.

We recognize paintings as depictions of Joseph Smith, not primarily because of the face–which varies widely from painting to painting–but because of the distinct pattern of his swept-forward hair on the sides and his shirt collar that is upturned in accordance with the fashions of the Jacksonian era.

Various Recognized Paintings of Joseph Smith Showing Only the Face: Each of these portraits represent Joseph Smith, yet when reduced to the face alone they show very different facial features and proportions. None of them are actually the same face.

The fact that the actual faces in these paintings vary widely in their specific features yet all are still recognizable portraits of Joseph Smith demonstrates that our sense of his appearance actually has little to do with his face. Our subjective sense of what his face looked like is so indistinct that we readily accept a wide range of likenesses as the face of Joseph Smith so long as each face is accompanied by an upturned collar and swept-forward hair. Like people suffering from the neurological condition of “face blindness” (prosopagnosia), we would not know his face if we saw it without these extrinsic identifiers.

Depiction By Conviction: Projecting Our Own Image onto the Prophet

Traditional artistic depictions of Joseph Smith often project onto him our own image of prophetic qualities. Each artist imbues their image of the Prophet with the qualities they think appropriate to a prophet, be it courage or compassion, wisdom or innocence, or any other noble quality. And depending on our personal convictions as viewers, we may be drawn to one or another of these depictions because of how it reflects our view of how a prophet should look.

This tendency to picture Joseph Smith based on idealized criteria goes back to the earliest depictions. Traditional depictions of Joseph Smith can be so stylized and idealized that they give him over-sized eyes and glowing, porcelain-like skin, as if they were meant to portray, not a flesh and blood human being, but a cherubic ideal.

But such unrealistic representations of the man can lead to unrealistic expectations of the prophet. Evidence of his fallible nature could collapse our exalted mirage with such disillusion that we demote him not just to mere mortal but to fallen angel. Lost is the perspective that Joseph Smith was not an angel but a man.

The accruing effect of such interpretive depictions can lead to unwittingly forming a myth of the prophet’s likeness. This has created a subverting bias in our expectations of what his photograph would look like.

Idealized Imagery Leads to Misidentifying Joseph: The photograph on the right is one of those that was purported to be of Joseph Smith because of its similarity to traditional imagery. It was later identified to be of Alexander Stuart, a politician from Virginia.

One instance of this mythologizing effect occurred over 15 years ago in the identification of a daguerreotype that was purported and promoted to be of Joseph Smith. This photo passed as being that of Joseph, based not on any historical connections to his time, place, or family, but purely on the preconceptions of his identifiers and idealized but baseless notions of his actual face. The photo looks like depictions we are familiar with and appeals to the subjective tastes that created those portraits, but it was later discovered to be documented in the Library of Congress as a daguerreotype taken circa 1850 of the Virginia politician Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, and even inscribed with the name “Stuart” in the lower right corner.

We have shown that it would be difficult to recognize a photograph of Joseph Smith based solely on the traditional portraits of him because they lack visual objectivity, human authenticity, and forensic precision. Given the subjective biases these portraits have cultivated for generations, how would we objectively recognize a photograph of the Prophet?

The next article in this series will present a forensic analysis of the Smith family daguerreotype, comparing the face in the photographs with the death masks of both Joseph and Hyrum and applying systematic methods of measurement and facial recognition to identify whose face it is that looks out at us from this mysterious artifact.

Footnotes: 

1 Joseph F. Smith, Journal, entry dated June 26, 1856, in Joseph F. Smith Papers, 1854-1918, Church History Library.

2 Joseph Smith III, The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith III 1832-1914; A Digital Reproduction of the Original Serial Publication Edited by Mary Audentia Smith Anderson, reprint edited by Richard P. Howard (Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 2010), 111, 220.

3 Grant Romer, noted daguerreotype expert and former associate of the George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, New York, in an email message to Lachlan Mackay, 20 May 2020. Also, Thomas Edmondson of Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services in Kansas City, Missouri, in an email message to Dan Larsen, April 29, 2020.

4 Hebrews 11:1.

5 Don Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), 5, 43-44.

6 Ron Romig and Lach McKay, Hidden Things Shall Come to Light: The Visual Image of Joseph Smith Jr.