Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833) was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. Niépce developed

heliography Heliography is an early photographic process, based on the hardening of bitumen in sunlight. It was invented by Nicéphore Niépce around 1822. Niépce used the process to make the earliest known surviving photograph from nature, '' View from ...

, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving products of a photographic process. In the mid-1820s, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce's other inventions was the Pyréolophore, one of the world's first

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

s, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude Niépce.

Biography

Early life

Niépce was born in

Chalon-sur-Saône Chalon-sur-Saône (, literally ''Chalon on Saône'') is a city in the Saône-et-Loire Departments of France, department in the Regions of France, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefectu ...

, Saône-et-Loire, where his father was a wealthy lawyer. His older brother Claude (1763–1828) was also his collaborator in research and invention, but died half-mad and destitute in England, having squandered the family wealth in pursuit of non-opportunities for the '' Pyréolophore''. Niépce also had a sister and a younger brother, Bernard. Nicéphore was baptized Joseph but adopted the name Nicéphore, in honour of Saint Nicephorus the ninth-century

Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople () is the archbishop of Constantinople and (first among equals) among the heads of the several autocephalous churches that comprise the Eastern Orthodox Church. The ecumenical patriarch is regarded as ...

, while studying at the Oratorian college in

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

. At the college he learned science and the

experimental method An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

, rapidly achieving success and graduating to work as a professor of the college.

Military career

Niépce served as a staff officer in the French army under

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

, spending years in Italy and on the island of Sardinia, but ill health forced him to resign, whereupon he married Agnes Romero and became the Administrator of the district of

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million

Scientific research

In 1801 the brothers returned to the family's estates in Chalon to continue their scientific research, and where they were united with their mother, their sister and their younger brother Bernard. Here they managed the family estate as independently wealthy gentlemen-farmers, raising beets and producing sugar.

Claude Niépce

In 1827 Niépce journeyed to England to visit his seriously ill elder brother Claude Niépce, who was now living in

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...

, near London. Claude had descended into delirium and squandered much of the family fortune chasing inappropriate business opportunities for the ''Pyréolophore''.

Death

Nicéphore Niépce died of a stroke on 5 July 1833, financially ruined such that his grave in the cemetery of Saint-Loup de Varennes was financed by the municipality. The cemetery is near the family house where he had experimented and had made the world's oldest surviving photographic image.

Descendants

His son Isidore (1805–1868) formed a partnership with Daguerre after his father's death and was granted a government pension in 1839 in return for disclosing the technical details of Nicéphore's heliogravure process. A cousin, Claude Félix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor (1805–1870), was a chemist and was the first to use albumen in photography. He also produced photographic engravings on steel. During 1857–1861, he discovered that uranium salts emit a form of radiation that is invisible to the human eye. Photojournalist Janine Niépce (1921–2007) is a distant relative.

Achievements

Photography

The date of Niépce's first photographic experiments is uncertain. He was led to them by his interest in the new art of

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

, for which he realized he lacked the necessary skill and artistic ability, and by his acquaintance with the camera obscura, a drawing aid which was popular among affluent dilettantes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The camera obscura's beautiful but fleeting little "light paintings" inspired a number of people, including Thomas Wedgwood and

Henry Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th c ...

, to seek some way of capturing them more easily and effectively than could be done by tracing over them with a pencil. Letters to his sister-in-law around 1816 indicate that Niépce had managed to capture small camera images on paper coated with

silver chloride Silver chloride is an inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula Ag Cl. This white crystalline solid is well known for its low solubility in water and its sensitivity to light. Upon illumination or heating, silver chloride converts ...

, making him apparently the first to have any success at all in such an attempt, but the results were negatives, dark where they should be light and vice versa, and he could find no way to stop them from darkening all over when brought into the light for viewing. Niépce turned his attention to other substances that were affected by light, eventually concentrating on

Bitumen of Judea Bitumen of Judea is a naturally occurring asphalt used since antiquity as a wood colorant, and in early photography as a light-sensitive coating. Wood coloration usage Bitumen of Judea may be used as a colorant for wood for an aged, natural ...

, a naturally occurring asphalt that had been used for various purposes since ancient times. In Niépce's time, it was used by artists as an acid-resistant coating on copper plates for making etchings. The artist scratched a drawing through the coating, then bathed the plate in acid to etch the exposed areas, then removed the coating with a solvent and used the plate to print ink copies of the drawing onto paper. What interested Niépce was the fact that the bitumen coating became less soluble after it had been left exposed to light. Niépce dissolved bitumen in

lavender oil Lavender oil is an essential oil obtained by distillation from the flower spikes of certain species of lavender. It is commonly used in aromatherapy, perfumery, and as a flavoring or fragrance in consumer products. A standardized oral ...

, a

solvent A solvent (from the Latin language, Latin ''wikt:solvo#Latin, solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a Solution (chemistry), solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas ...

often used in

varnish Varnish is a clear Transparency (optics), transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not to be confused with wood stain. It usually has a yellowish shade due to the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmente ...

es, and thinly coated it onto a lithographic stone or a sheet of metal or glass. After the coating had dried, a test subject, typically an

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

printed on paper, was laid over the surface in close contact and the two were put out in direct sunlight. After sufficient exposure, the solvent could be used to rinse away only the unhardened bitumen that had been shielded from light by lines or dark areas in the test subject. The parts of the surface thus laid bare could then be etched with acid, or the remaining bitumen could serve as the water-repellent material in lithographic printing. Niépce called his process heliography, which literally means "sun drawing". In 1822, he used it to create what is believed to have been the world's first permanent photographic image, a contact-exposed copy of an engraving of

Pope Pius VII Pope Pius VII (; born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti; 14 August 1742 – 20 August 1823) was head of the Catholic Church from 14 March 1800 to his death in August 1823. He ruled the Papal States from June 1800 to 17 May 1809 and again ...

, but it was later destroyed when Niépce attempted to make prints from it. The earliest surviving photographic artifacts by Niépce, made in 1825, are copies of a 17th-century engraving of a man with a horse and of what may be an etching or engraving of a woman with a

spinning wheel A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. It was fundamental to the textile industry prior to the Industrial Revolution. It laid the foundations for later machinery such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, ...

. They are simply sheets of plain paper printed with ink in a printing press, like ordinary etchings, engravings, or lithographs, but the plates used to print them were created photographically by Niépce's process rather than by laborious and inexact hand-engraving or drawing on lithographic stones. They thus are photo-etchings. One example of the print of the man with a horse and two examples of the print of the woman with the spinning wheel are known to have survived. The former is in the collection of the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

in Paris and the latter two are in a private collection in Westport, Connecticut. Niépce's correspondence with his brother Claude has preserved the fact that his first real success in using bitumen to create a permanent photograph of the image in a camera obscura came sometime between 1822 and 1827. The result is now the oldest known camera photograph still in existence. The historic image had seemingly been lost early in the 20th century, but photography historians Helmut and Alison Gernsheim succeeded in tracking it down in 1952. The exposure time required to make it is usually said to have been eight or nine hours, but that is a mid-20th century assumption based largely on the fact that the sun lights the buildings on opposite sides, as if from an arc across the sky, indicating an essentially day-long exposure. A later researcher who used Niépce's notes and historically correct materials to recreate his processes found that in fact ''several days'' of exposure in the camera were needed to adequately capture such an image on a bitumen-coated plate. In 1829, Niépce entered into a partnership with

Louis Daguerre Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( ; ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a France, French scientist, artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of th ...

, who was also seeking a means of creating permanent photographic images with a camera. Together, they developed the physautotype, an improved process that used lavender oil distillate as the photosensitive substance. The partnership lasted until Niépce's death in 1833, after which Daguerre continued to experiment, eventually working out a process that only superficially resembled Niépce's. He named it the "

daguerréotype Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photography, photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced worldwid ...

", after himself. In 1839 he managed to get the government of France to purchase his invention on behalf of the people of France. The French government agreed to award Daguerre a yearly stipend of 6,000 francs for the rest of his life, and to give the estate of Niépce 4,000 francs yearly. This arrangement rankled Niépce's son, who claimed Daguerre was reaping all the benefits of his father's work. In some ways, he was right—for many years, Niépce received little credit for his contribution. Later historians have reclaimed Niépce from relative obscurity, and it is now generally recognized that his "heliography" was the first successful example of what we now call "photography": the creation of a reasonably light-fast and permanent image by the action of light on a light-sensitive surface and subsequent processing. Although initially ignored amid the excitement caused by the introduction of the daguerreotype, and far too insensitive to be practical for making photographs with a camera, the utility of Niépce's original process for its primary purpose was eventually realized. From the 1850s until well into the 20th century, a thin coating of bitumen was widely used as a slow but very effective and economical

photoresist A photoresist (also known simply as a resist) is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronics industry. T ...

for making printing plates.

Pyréolophore

The Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines that was actually built, was invented and patented by the Niépce brothers in 1807. This engine ran on controlled dust explosions of lycopodium powder and was installed on a boat that ran on the river

Saône The Saône ( , ; ; ) is a river in eastern France (modern Regions of France, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté). It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges (department), Vosges Departments of France, department an ...

. Ten years later, the brothers were the first in the world to make an engine work with a fuel injection system.

Marly machine

In 1807 the imperial government opened a competition for a hydraulic machine to replace the original Marly machine (located in Marly-le-Roi) that delivered water to the

Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

from the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

river. The machine was built in

Bougival Bougival () is a suburban commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is located west from the centre of Paris, on the left bank of the River Seine, on the departmental border with Hauts-de-Seine. In ...

in 1684, from where it pumped water a distance of one kilometer and raised it 150 meters. The Niépce brothers conceived a new hydrostatic principle for the machine and improved it once more in 1809. The machine had undergone changes in many of its parts, including more precise pistons, creating far less resistance. They tested it many times, and the result was that with a stream drop of 4 feet 4 inches, it lifted water 11 feet. But in December 1809 they got a message that they had waited too long and the Emperor had taken on himself the decision to ask the engineer Périer (1742–1818) to build a steam engine to operate the pumps at Marly.

Vélocipède

In 1818 Niépce became interested in the ancestor of the bicycle, a

Laufmaschine The dandy horse, an English nickname for what was first called a Laufmaschine ("running machine" in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, or swiftwalker, is a hum ...

invented by

Karl von Drais Karl Freiherr von Drais (full name: Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn; 29 April 1785 – 10 December 1851) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He is regarded as "t ...

in 1817. He built himself a model and called it the

vélocipède A velocipede () is a human-powered land vehicle with one or more wheels. The most common type of velocipede today is the bicycle. The term was probably first coined by Karl von Drais in French as ''vélocipède'' for the French translation ...

(''fast foot'') and caused quite a sensation on the local country roads. Niépce improved his machine with an adjustable saddle and it is now exhibited at the Niépce Museum. In a letter to his brother Nicéphore contemplated motorizing his machine.

Legacy and commemoration

The lunar crater Niépce is named after him. The Niépce Heliograph is on permanent display at the Harry Ransom Center at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

. The object was located by historians Alison and Helmut Gernsheim in 1952 and sold to the Humanities Research Center (later renamed the Harry Ransom Center) in 1963. The Niépce Prize has been awarded annually since 1955 to a professional photographer who has lived and worked in France for over three years. It was introduced in honour of Niépce by Albert Plécy of the l'Association Gens d'Images.

References

Sources

* Marignier, J. L., ''Niépce: l'invention de la photographie'' (1999) * Bajac, Q., ''The Invention of Photography'', trans. R. Taylor (2002)

External links

Website about Niépce

Website about Niépce

Harry Ransom Center permanent exhibition of "The Niépce Heliograph"

The history men: Helmut Gernsheim and Nicéphore Niépce on Photo Histories
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niepce, Nicephore 1765 births 1833 deaths People from Chalon-sur-Saône Pioneers of photography 19th-century French inventors 19th-century French photographers People associated with the internal combustion engine People of the Industrial Revolution