Nicéphore Niépce

French inventor

• Born: March 7, 1765
• Birthplace: Chalon-sur-Saône, France
• Died: July 5, 1833
• Place of death: Chalon-sur-Saône, France

Niépce was a tenacious researcher who, despite rural isolation, succeeded in creating first a method of photomechanical reproduction and subsequently the earliest method of permanently recording the image of the camera obscura.

Early Life

Nicéphore Niépce (nee-say-fohr nyehps) was born into a prosperous bourgeois family with several estates in the Burgundy region of France. His father, Claude, was a lawyer who, suspected of sympathy for the king during the upheavals of the French Revolution, had to flee his home for a time. Four children were born to Claude and his wife. Their firstborn was a daughter and the second was a son, also named Claude, who was born in 1763. Though Claude was a lifelong friend and collaborator of his younger brother Nicéphore, a third brother, Bernhard, born in 1773, appears to have had no part in their photographic research.

Nicéphore and Claude were educated at a Catholic seminary in their hometown. Nicéphore is thought to have been intended by his father for the priesthood, and he taught briefly at the seminary following his studies there until the revolution caused the religious order to be dispersed. In 1792, not long after the death of his father, Nicéphore joined an infantry regiment of Napoleon I’s army, an act that may have been conceived partly as a way of allaying suspicions about his own political sympathies; in any case, military service was mandatory for a man of his age. Achieving the rank of lieutenant in May, 1793, he traveled to Italy and participated in the campaign there in the following year but soon fell victim to typhoid fever. Resigning his commission, he returned to France, living in the Mediterranean city of Nice, where he was employed by the district administration.

Nicéphore married in Nice in 1795, and two years later, while he pursued family business affairs in Cagliari, the capital of the island of Sardinia, a son, Isidore, was born to the young couple. Claude had accompanied his brother on this trip, and it appears that they had conducted some unsuccessful experiments in an attempt to capture the image created in the camera obscura , an optical device consisting of a lens and a box, or chamber, within which an image could be viewed. The camera obscura had been used for centuries both as a technical aid for draftsmen and as a popular entertainment, but the Niépce brothers’ experiment was perhaps the first such use of the apparatus. Only a few years later, Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy were to attempt a similar experiment in England, also without success.

Both brothers returned to their home in Chalon-sur-Saône in 1801. The family’s remaining wealth allowed them to continue pursuing a variety of research. From their childhood, Claude and Nicéphore had shown a penchant for experimentation, making working-scale model machines together. Over the next few years, they worked on an ambitious invention that they called the “Pyréolophore,” an ancestor of the internal combustion engine .

Pyréolophore is a coinage based on Greek words that translates roughly as “producer of wind and fire.” Air was mixed in a piston cylinder with lycopodium, a highly flammable plant spore, producing a controlled explosion powerful enough to propel a boat up the Saône River at twice the speed of the current. This invention, remarkable for its time, was patented by decree of Napoleon on July 20, 1807, from Dresden, Germany. The Niépce brothers continued to refine the Pyréolophore over the next twenty years with the hope of exploiting it commercially, but documentation does not suggest the importance of this endeavor relative to the work in photography, which occupied their attention during many of the same years.

It is known that the Niépce brothers conducted work in the cultivation of textile plants and the extraction of indigo dye but without creating successful business ventures based upon their efforts. Much of the work of Nicéphore and Claude seems to have been motivated more by curiosity than hope of financial gain. Nicéphore has been referred to by modern commentators as “a modest provincial amateur scientist” and as “a dilettante inventor (in the best sense of the word),” and it is certain that the prestige given to science and technology by the European Enlightenment exerted an influence upon him.

Even the few existing published images of Nicéphore bear witness to his ties to the rational outlook of the eighteenth century, though they date from a much later period: His portrait is rendered in the neoclassical style, the reserved, formal kind of art typical of the latter half of the century, instead of in the more expressive and emotional Romantic style of the years of his maturity. These portraits, consisting of a sketch by his son, Isidore, a sculpture from 1853 by Jean August Barre based upon it, and a drawing from 1795 by C. Laguiche, depict Niépce as having a long but well-proportioned face and aquiline nose, and also possessing unmistakably gentle eyes that evoke a kindly personality.

Life’s Work

Niépce conducted various researches at his country estate, Le Gras, in the village of Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, just south of Chalon-sur-Saône. Claude moved to Paris in 1816 to be better able to promote the Pyréolophore, but by then the brothers had begun to experiment in earnest with light-sensitive materials. The path to resuming the project that they had begun in 1797-1798 began with Nicéphore’s interest in lithography, a new method of reproduction of drawings that had been introduced by Aloys Senefelder in 1798 in Munich, Germany. In 1812, a French nobleman had attempted to make the method better known in France, and by 1813, a craze for it had swept the nation.

Nicéphore had begun by etching the stones drawn upon by his son, Isidore, but because the stones were of indifferent quality, he tried using pewter plates instead. Soon after father and son began this project, Isidore joined the army. Nicéphore, having little aptitude for drawing, turned from reproducing drawings to a search for a method of copying engravings onto his lithographic plates. The technique that he tried involved first oiling or waxing an engraving in order to make it transparent, then placing it atop a plate that had been coated with a light-sensitive material. These early experiments do not seem to have been successful, but in 1822, employing a form of asphaltum called bitumen of Judea as the light-sensitive coating, his efforts resulted in an effective method he named “heliography,” derived from the Greek roots meaning “sun” and “drawing.”

In the early instances, these copies were made upon glass plates. The emulsion-coated plate was then exposed through the oiled engraving to the light of the sun for two or three hours. The areas of the asphaltum emulsion that had received ample exposure through the transparent paper alone were hardened by the action of light, but the areas of the emulsion lying under the dark areas of the print remained unhardened and were readily washed away by a solvent of lavender oil and turpentine.

Niépce’s first attempts to record the image of a camera obscura began in April of 1816. A sheet of paper sensitized with silver chloride was exposed in one of three small cameras for an hour or more, resulting in a faint negative image. These negatives were treated in nitric acid in an attempt to fix them, but Niépce knew that the acid was bound to attack the image. A second problem with this method was the reversal of the values of the original scene, which he tried to solve by making a print using the camera negative in much the same way that he had used an engraving in his first attempts at photolithography. Some of these prints seem to have survived in a faded condition into the 1860’s.

Two other approaches to recording the camera image were the use of substances that bleach in the presence of light and the attempt to capture an image on metal and lithographic stone in order to use it for printing plates, but neither of these was successful. In the next several years, Nicéphore experimented with other light-sensitive emulsions, communicating his research in guarded letters to Claude, who had moved to London in August of 1817. Little of Nicéphore’s side of the correspondence survives, apparently because Claude destroyed the letters in order to forestall discovery of their line of inquiry.

As Nicéphore’s method of heliography became more refined, the possibility of using it to record the camera obscura image presented itself. The first partial success in this endeavor dates from 1824 and is reported in an optimistic letter to Claude dated September 16, 1824, which mentions images captured on stone and glass. Nicéphore’s attempt to etch the stones ended in failure, however, because the image was too faint. The following year, Nicéphore experimented with zinc and copper plates and in 1826 tried pewter.

Aided by improved optics and by accumulated expertise in the preparation and handling of plates, in 1827—probably in June or July—Niépce produced the image that is today regarded as the first photograph, in the accepted sense of “a permanent image of a natural scene made with a camera.” It is a view taken from an upper-story window at Le Gras, showing a courtyard of the estate with a wing of the main building on the left, some trees and a low building described as a bake house in the center, and a tower on the right.

Judging from the somewhat contradictory lighting of the objects in the picture, the exposure probably lasted about eight hours. This 6«-by-8-inch plate, which lay undiscovered in England until 1852, is part of the Gernsheim collection at the University of Texas, a legacy of the indefatigable historian who tracked it down. There is no conclusive proof that it is the first photograph, but since most of Nicéphore’s trials were made from the same upper-story window of the house, it can be little different from other results achieved at this time that may have been lost; presumably, it is one of the best examples of his work, because it is one that he took to England with him in 1827 on a visit to see his ailing brother, Claude.

In early 1826, Niépce had ordered a camera obscura from the noted Paris opticians Charles and Vincent Chevalier, and he asked a cousin, who was to visit there, to buy the instrument for him. In conversation with Charles Chevalier, the cousin described the intended use of the specially equipped camera and even showed him an example of heliography. This unauthorized revelation soon reached another customer of the Chevaliers, the painter and scenic designerJacques Daguerre, an ambitious man who was known principally as the proprietor of the diorama, a popular entertainment that simulated famous places and events by means of the manipulation of illusionistically painted scrims, lighting, auditory effects, and other theatrical devices.

Daguerre had been conducting experiments toward fixing the image of the camera obscura—though without documented results—and upon hearing of the work of Niépce, wrote to him to gain information about his processes. Daguerre’s first inquiries were all but rebuffed; Niépce was perhaps justifiably suspicious of a stranger whose motives he could not assess. After more than a year of correspondence, however, Daguerre won a response from Niépce by sending him a drawing. Niépce replied with a heliographic printing plate showing the Holy Family and a proof from it. The two men met for the first time in Paris in September, 1827, while Niépce was en route to London to visit his brother, and they met again in early 1828 on the return journey.

During 1829, Daguerre slowly won Niépce’s confidence, and when Niépce decided to write a handbook explaining his research, it was Daguerre’s advice that Niépce should attempt to find a way of getting a large profit out of the invention before publication, apart from the honor it would gain for him. Niépce then invited Daguerre to become a partner in perfecting heliography, and in December, 1929, they signed a ten-year contract to perfect and exploit the process.

The partnership was, in many ways, an unequal one, with Niépce supplying a far greater portion of the combined technical experience. Daguerre’s potential contribution, however, was far from negligible; he was a man of great energy, a skilled entrepreneur who was perhaps perfectly suited to direct the commercial exploitation of a successful photographic process (although in this episode of photographic history, as in many later ones, the financial value of the technology was surprisingly elusive).

Niépce had attempted to launch heliography in late 1827, during his visit to London. While staying at Kew, near the Royal Botanical Gardens, Niépce had become acquainted with Francis Bauer, a well-known botanical draftsman. Bauer, recognizing the importance of Niépce’s experiments, suggested that Niépce address a meeting of the Royal Society on the topic of heliography. A notice on heliography, accompanied by several examples, was prepared but was never presented, ostensibly because Niépce was unwilling to disclose the entirety of his work and was himself disqualified by the society’s rules from making a presentation.

Niépce returned to France in early 1828, disappointed by the lack of interest in his work and saddened by the death of his brother, who seems in his last months to have suffered from delusions, including one in which he regarded the Pyréolophore as a kind of perpetual-motion machine. These personal setbacks may well have helped pave the way for Niépce’s partnership with Daguerre, to whom the burden of experimentation began to pass during the early 1830’s. Little physical evidence remains of the work of either Niépce or Daguerre from these years. A glass plate picturing a still life of a table set for a meal, known only from a mediocre halftone reproduction of 1891, was smashed in 1909 by a demented professor who was supposed to conduct scientific tests on it. This object may have been the work of Niépce, of Daguerre, or even of Niépce’s cousin Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor, who took up the heliographic process again in 1853.

By 1829, Niépce felt ready to write a book about his discoveries. Several drafts of an outline exist, and they are quite logical, showing that Niépce was putting his photographic experiences into useful form, perhaps with some thought of his posthumous reputation. Although his partnership with Daguerre remained valid, his productive contribution to it clearly appears to have diminished in the period immediately following its inception. On July 5, 1833, Niépce died of a stroke; he was sixty-eight years old.

Significance

Nicéphore Niépce was neither an artist nor a scientist but made a contribution to each field at a time when art and science were more naturally related than they became during the Industrial Revolution. His research was less systematic than that of the scientists of his day, and he appears not to have had productive contacts with specialists who could aid his experiments. However, as a generalist, he succeeded where better-qualified people had failed. One reason for this may have been his determination; another is surely that he had the leisure and the resources, over a long period of time, to let his accumulated experiences coalesce into practical steps toward his goals.

It is interesting to speculate on how events might have developed if particular circumstances had differed. In the case of Niépce’s inability to publish his notes in England during his sojourn there, there is strong justification for the view that, had he been successful in publicizing heliography in 1827, a series of communications between various noted individuals would almost certainly have resulted in the development, before 1830, of a photographic method based upon paper negatives. Not only would Daguerre’s partnership with Niépce have been forestalled, along with the daguerreotype process that was its legacy, but also the great intellectual gifts of the Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot might not have been directed into photography. Whether this course of events would have had any truly lasting effect upon the art or technology of photography is, however, debatable, especially since both Niépce and Daguerre were cognizant of the possible advantages of emulsions coated upon glass plates, the method that was soon to triumph over both Daguerre’s and Talbot’s processes.

Though there is scant evidence of artistic intention in Niépce’s research, his photograph from the window at Le Gras has assumed a monumental significance within the art of photography; as an item of photographic incunabula, it has taken on an aura that is more than sentimental. Technically primitive, it nevertheless announces the beginning of a new era in communication and a new dimension of artistic sensibility.

Bibliography

Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997. A revisionist history of photography, tracing how the desire to photograph emerged from eighteenth and early nineteenth century ideas about landscape and nature. Batchen argues that early photographers, such as Niépce and Daguerre, were not interested in capturing reality, but wanted to “deconstruct” reality.

Braive, Michel F. The Era of the Photograph: A Social History. London: Thames & Hudson, 1966. In addition to a brief memoir of Niépce by his descendant, photographer Janine Niépce, this book offers several illustrations of Niépce memorabilia not found elsewhere.

Daval, Jean-Luc. Photography: History of an Art. New York: Rizzoli, 1982. This book treats Niépce only in passing, but it offers a rare reproduction of one of his heliographs that represents his experiments more accurately, perhaps, than the enhanced and even retouched illustrations available in other sources.

Fouque, Victor. The Truth Concerning the Invention of Photography: Nicéphore Niépce, His Life and Works. Translated by Edward Epstean. New York: Tennant and Ward, 1935. This difficult-to-find translation of a work originally published in 1867 contains the correspondence between Claude and Nicéphore Niépce, but the material is adequately available in the standard modern sources.

Gernsheim, Helmut. “The 150th Anniversary of Photography.” History of Photography: An International Quarterly 1 (January, 1977): 3-8. An indication of Gernsheim’s eminence in the study of the history of photography is given by the fact that this personal memoir is the lead item in the inaugural issue of this journal. The article is an account of his discovery in 1952, by scholarly instinct and luck, of the image now recognized as the first photograph.

Gernsheim, Helmut, and Alison Gernsheim. The History of Photography from the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955. Rev. ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 1969. For years this was the standard detailed survey of the history of photography. This book displays both the authors’ thoroughness and their affection for the subject. There are hundreds of excellent illustrations as well as notes, an index, and a bibliography meeting high scholarly standards.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Origins of Photography. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1982. Essentially an adaptation of material from the Gernsheims’ 1969 history of photography, this volume covers the photographic medium only until the end of the era of the calotype and daguerreotype. This book is better designed than its predecessor but contains fewer illustrations pertaining to Niépce.

Gorman, Jessica. “Photography at a Crossroads.” Science News 162, no. 21 (November 23, 2002): 331. Examines the future of historical photos in the digital age. Includes information about Niépce’s creation of the first heliograph and Gernsheim’s attempt to locate it.

Newhall, Beaumont. Latent Image: The Discovery of Photography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967. This is the best survey of the technical research pursued by Niépce, Daguerre, Talbot, and others. Written in an entertaining narrative style, this book by a leading historian of photography tells the human side of the story as well.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Photography: Essays and Images, Illustrated Readings in the History of Photography. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980. The rather dry documentation of material that survives from Niépce’s experiments was understandably omitted from this collection, but the book vividly shows the cultural context of the search for a photographic technology. Indispensable to students of the early history of photography is the reprinting of the entire text of an 1857 article by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, who affectionately calls Niépce the “philosopher of Chalon.”

Scharf, Aaron. “The Mirror with a Memory.” In Pioneers of Photography: An Album of Pictures and Words. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1975. This chapter contains generous excerpts from Niépce’s diaries and correspondence as well as a highly amusing chart showing his linguistically oriented attempt in 1832 to derive a name for “photography” from Greek roots.