Curatorial description (Accessed: 22 June 2021)
The son of one of Napoleon's officers, Cavagnari, a naturalized British subject, became one of the most courageous servants of the Empire, first in India and later in Afghanistan. In 1879, the year in which this photograph was taken, he negotiated and signed the Treaty of Gandamuck with Afghanistan and was made a KCB. He was then appointed British Resident in Kabul, but was murdered in the citadel there along with other Europeans on 3 September by mutinous Afghan troops. His head was split open with a blow just as the citadel's burning roof fell in and his body was never found.
