diff --git a/start.sh b/start.sh
index ba296117..529c01b8 100755
--- a/start.sh
+++ b/start.sh
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@ echo "prepare environment"
 sed -i "s|BASE_URL:\"[^\"]*\"|BASE_URL:\"${REMARK_URL}\"|g" /srv/web/*.js
 sed -i "s|var baseurl = '[^']*';|var baseurl = '${REMARK_URL}';|g" /srv/web/*.html
 
+# copy default avatar
+cp -fv /srv/web/remark.image /srv/var/avatars/remark.image
+
 echo "start remark42 server"
 
 /sbin/su-exec ${USER} /srv/remark server
diff --git a/web/remark.image b/web/remark.image
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c6b90daf
Binary files /dev/null and b/web/remark.image differ