Image: Paul Kruger c1865

Description: Paul Kruger, the future President of the South African Republic, around 1865. This is reputed to be the only photograph of him where his thumbless left hand is visible; he almost always hid it from photographers.
Title: Paul Kruger c1865
Credit: Scanned from page 331 of Kruger, Paul (1902). The Memoirs of Paul Kruger, Four Times President of the South African Republic. Trans. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Toronto: George N Morang & Co. The source is given on page 332 thus: "From an old-fashioned silver-plate photograph, taken by Mr Jeffreys of Cape Town. It was given by Kruger (who was at the time Field Cornet of Potchefstroom) to Mr Jeffreys's father at Potchefstroom, about the year 1865. Mr Jeffreys believes that the old plate was a positive (instead of a negative, from which photographs are printed nowadays), consequently, the left side comes out as the right. This photograph is the only one showing the loss of President Kruger's thumb. In the other photographs he always seems to hide the left hand, and the right thumb comes out clearly in some. In this print the right hand seems to be thumbless owing to the inversion of the plate." Note that I (the uploader) have reversed the scan horizontally to correct the image, per the explanation given in the source above. It is Kruger's left hand that was missing a thumb.
Author: "Mr Jeffreys, of Cape Town"
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No