diff --git a/packages/rendermime/src/renderers.ts b/packages/rendermime/src/renderers.ts
index 8df3a450ba6f..8a684159be82 100644
--- a/packages/rendermime/src/renderers.ts
+++ b/packages/rendermime/src/renderers.ts
@@ -418,6 +418,12 @@ export function renderSVG(options: renderSVG.IRenderOptions): Promise<void> {
     return Promise.resolve(undefined);
   }
 
+  // Add missing SVG namespace (if actually missing)
+  let patt = '<svg[^>]+xmlns=[^>]+svg';
+  if (source.search(patt) < 0) {
+    source = source.replace('<svg', '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"');
+  }
+
   // Render in img so that user can save it easily
   const img = new Image();
   img.src = `data:image/svg+xml,${encodeURIComponent(source)}`;
diff --git a/tests/test-rendermime/src/factories.spec.ts b/tests/test-rendermime/src/factories.spec.ts
index b2f8e5d4e9dc..fc0b920ef8da 100644
--- a/tests/test-rendermime/src/factories.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/test-rendermime/src/factories.spec.ts
@@ -135,6 +135,7 @@ describe('rendermime/factories', () => {
     describe('#createRenderer()', () => {
       it('should create an img element with the uri encoded svg inline', async () => {
         const source = '<svg></svg>';
+        const displaySource = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg>';
         const f = svgRendererFactory;
         const mimeType = 'image/svg+xml';
         const model = createModel(mimeType, source, true);
@@ -142,7 +143,7 @@ describe('rendermime/factories', () => {
         await w.renderModel(model);
         const imgEl = w.node.getElementsByTagName('img')[0];
         expect(imgEl).to.be.ok;
-        expect(imgEl.src).to.contain(encodeURIComponent(source));
+        expect(imgEl.src).to.contain(encodeURIComponent(displaySource));
       });
     });
   });