[2][8] Dufour is a dark C-type asteroid, that orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.8–3.6 AU once every 5 years and 8 months (2,082 days).

The body's observation arc begins 21 years prior to its official discovery at Zimmerwald, when it was identified as 1952 BQ1 at McDonald Observatory in 1952.

Dufour was also a co-founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross, founder of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography and architect of the first complete geodetic survey of Switzerland.

[10] French amateur astronomer Pierre Antonini obtained a lightcurve of Dufour from photometric observations taken during April 2010.

[7] In August 2013, photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory, California, gave a similar period of 15.7583±0.0309 hours with a brightness variation of 0.35 (U=2).