Major Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, 1879 (c)

Hand coloured lantern slide.

Major Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari (1841-1879) was born in France, the son of an Italian Bonapartist army officer, and despite his British naturalisation in 1857, remained something of an adventurer until his death. He served with the East India Army in the 1st Bengal Fusiliers and then transferred into the political service, becoming Deputy Commissioner at Peshawar.

As a favourite of the Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, he negotiated the Treaty of Gandamak on 26 May 1878 with the Afghan Amir Yakub Khan. The Amir was forced to accept Cavagnari as the British envoy resident in Kabul and consent to British control of Afghanistan's foreign policy. Cavagnari was knighted and arrived in Kabul in July, but within two months, he and his 75-strong escort of the Queen's Own Guides had been murdered by mutinous Afghan soldiers.

One of 37 hand coloured lantern slides.