Nicéphore Niépce

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833) was a French inventor known for helping start the art of photography. He created a way called heliography to make pictures using sunlight. In the 1820s, Niépce used a simple camera to take what we think is the oldest picture of a real place that still exists today.

Besides photography, Niépce also worked on other inventions. With his older brother Claude Niépce, he built one of the first machines that could burn fuel to move, called the Pyréolophore. This was an early version of what we now call an internal combustion engine. Niépce’s work helped change how we see and record the world.

Biography

Niépce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, where his father was a lawyer. He studied science at the Oratorian college in Angers and later became a professor there.

Niépce's birthplace at Chalon-sur-Saône, with a plaque in his memory

He served in the French army led by Napoleon but had to leave due to health issues. He then married and worked as an administrator. Later, he focused on scientific research with his brother Claude.

Niépce passed away from a stroke in 1833. His son Isidore later worked with Daguerre and shared his father's photographic methods. A cousin, Claude Félix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor, also made important discoveries in photography.

Achievements

Photography

Niépce began experimenting with photography because he was interested in lithography but felt he didn’t have the artistic skill for it. He also knew about the camera obscura, a device that projects images and was popular at the time.

One of the three earliest known photographic artifacts, created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1825. It is an ink-on-paper print, but the printing plate used to make it was photographically created by Niépce's heliography process. It reproduces a 17th-century Flemish engraving.

Niépce tried capturing images using paper coated with silver chloride, but the images were negatives and would darken when exposed to light. He then tried using Bitumen of Judea, a type of natural asphalt. He dissolved it in lavender oil and coated it on surfaces like stone or metal. When exposed to sunlight, parts of the coating hardened, allowing him to create the first permanent photographic images. In 1822, he made what is believed to be the first permanent photograph, though it was later destroyed. The oldest surviving photographs made by Niépce in 1825 show a man with a horse and a woman with a spinning wheel. In 1829, Niépce partnered with Louis Daguerre to improve photographic processes. Together, they developed a new method, but it was Daguerre who later created the daguerreotype, which became famous.

Pyréolophore

The Niépce brothers invented one of the first internal combustion engines in 1807, called the Pyréolophore. It used lycopodium powder explosions to run and was even placed on a boat on the Saône river. Ten years later, they created an engine with a fuel injection system, a first in the world.

Still life of a set table, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, 1824–1833, the second earliest known camera photograph of which any visual record has survived. It is seen here in a late 19th century printed reproduction. The original, which was on glass, disappeared very early in the 20th century and is presumed to have been accidentally destroyed

Vélocipède

In 1818, Niépce became interested in the Laufmaschine, an early version of the bicycle invented by Karl von Drais. Niépce built his own version, calling it the vélocipède, meaning “fast foot.” He improved it with an adjustable saddle, and it is displayed at the Niépce Museum today.

Marly machine

In 1807, the Niépce brothers worked on a new design for a hydraulic machine to replace the original Marly machine, which pumped water to the Palace of Versailles from the Seine river. They tested their improved machine many times, but by December 1809, the Emperor decided to use a steam engine instead.

Legacy and commemoration

The lunar crater Niépce is named after him, as is the minor planet (3117) Niépce.

The Niépce Heliograph is on permanent display at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It was found 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 each year since 1955 to a professional photographer who has lived and worked in France for over three years. It was started in honor of Niépce by Albert Plécy of l'Association Gens d'Images.