diff --git a/lib/Cake/Test/Case/View/Helper/HtmlHelperTest.php b/lib/Cake/Test/Case/View/Helper/HtmlHelperTest.php
index 57ece5171..e90966453 100644
--- a/lib/Cake/Test/Case/View/Helper/HtmlHelperTest.php
+++ b/lib/Cake/Test/Case/View/Helper/HtmlHelperTest.php
@@ -553,6 +553,40 @@ class HtmlHelperTest extends CakeTestCase {
 		}
 	}
 
+/**
+ * testBase64ImageTag method
+ *
+ * @return void
+ */
+	public function testBase64ImageTag() {
+		$this->Html->request->webroot = '';
+
+		$result = $this->Html->image('cake.icon.png', array('base64' => true));
+		$this->assertTags($result, array(
+			'img' => array(
+				'src' => 'preg:/data:image\/png;base64,(?:[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{4})*(?:[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{2}==|[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{4})/',
+				'alt' => ''
+			)));
+
+		$result = $this->Html->image('/img/cake.icon.png', array('base64' => true));
+		$this->assertTags($result, array(
+			'img' => array(
+				'src' => 'preg:/data:image\/png;base64,(?:[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{4})*(?:[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{2}==|[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9+\/]{4})/',
+				'alt' => ''
+			)));
+	}
+
+/**
+ * testLoadConfigWrongFile method
+ *
+ * @return void
+ * @expectedException InvalidArgumentException
+ */
+	public function testBase64InvalidArgumentException() {
+		$this->Html->request->webroot = '';
+		$this->Html->image('non-existent-image.png', array('base64' => true));
+	}
+
 /**
  * test theme assets in main webroot path
  *
diff --git a/lib/Cake/View/Helper/HtmlHelper.php b/lib/Cake/View/Helper/HtmlHelper.php
index e18967e4a..548c61e6b 100644
--- a/lib/Cake/View/Helper/HtmlHelper.php
+++ b/lib/Cake/View/Helper/HtmlHelper.php
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 
 App::uses('AppHelper', 'View/Helper');
 App::uses('CakeResponse', 'Network');
+App::uses('File', 'Utility');
 
 /**
  * Html Helper class for easy use of HTML widgets.
@@ -809,10 +810,13 @@ class HtmlHelper extends AppHelper {
  *   `$options['url']`.
  * - `fullBase` If true the src attribute will get a full address for the image file.
  * - `plugin` False value will prevent parsing path as a plugin
+ * - `base64` If true the src attribute will instead be a base64 data URI of the image file.
+ *    Can not be used with external links.
  *
  * @param string $path Path to the image file, relative to the app/webroot/img/ directory.
  * @param array $options Array of HTML attributes. See above for special options.
  * @return string completed img tag
+ * @throws InvalidArgumentException - if the image isn't on disk and you have requested the base64 output
  * @link http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/helpers/html.html#HtmlHelper::image
  */
 	public function image($path, $options = array()) {
@@ -829,6 +833,19 @@ class HtmlHelper extends AppHelper {
 			unset($options['url']);
 		}
 
+		if (!empty($options['base64']) && !$url) {
+			$fullPath = WWW_ROOT . $path;
+			$file = new File($fullPath, false);
+			if (!$file->exists() || !$file->readable()) {
+				throw new InvalidArgumentException(__d('cake', 'Unable to find the requested image to output as base64!'));
+			}
+
+			$base64 = base64_encode($file->read());
+			$type = $file->mime();
+			unset($options['base64']);
+			$path = sprintf('data:%s;base64,%s', $type, $base64);
+		}
+
 		$image = sprintf($this->_tags['image'], $path, $this->_parseAttributes($options));
 
 		if ($url) {