NIEPCE, JOSEPH (LATER NICéPHORE)

(b. Chalonsur Saône, France, 1765; d. St. Loup de Varenne, France. 5 July 1833)

photography.

In 1789 Niepce was a professor at an Oratorian collège in Angers; he then took up a military career, eventually becoming a staff officer with the French army in Italy. In 1794 he left the army to settle in Nice, where he married. He was appointed administrator of the district of Nice at the beginning of 1795, but resigned after a few months: his elder brother Claude, who had also retired from the army, came to join him, and together they Pursued their common interest in research.

By 3 August 1807, the date upon which they patented their “pyréolophore,” the brothers had left Nice for their paternal home at Chalon-sur-Saône and their country estate of St. Loup do Varenne. Tile “pvreolophore” was an internal combustion engine fueled by lycopodium powder. It was sufficiently powerful to move a boat, and trials of it were conducted on a pond at St, Loup de Varenne and on the Saône. The tests were reported favorably to the Académic des Sciences by Berthollet and Lazare Carrot, but the invention never became practical, although the Niepce brothers attempted to render it more economical by substituting first pulverized coal, then petroleum, for the expensive lycopodium powder. A further invention of the same year, a sort of hydraulic ram, devised in response to a government competition to replace the apparatus formerly used to supply Versailles with water from the Seine, won them only an encouraging letter from Carnot.

The brothers next turned to agricultural research. In 1813 the government offered a prize for a would that could replace indigo, which was then totally unavailable because of the Continental Blockade. The Niepces investigated a variety of materials, but did not succeed in extracting a suitable dye. They also tried to derive sugar from beets and starch from pumpkins, and examined plants that might yield fibers for textiles. Their only rewards were flattering letters from the government.

By 1813 Nicéphore Niepce had taken up the then fashionable occupation of lithography. The development of his researches during the next few years is not known, but it would seem probable that having himself tried to sketch some simple subjects for lithographic reproduction, he next tried to copy engravings automatically by rendering them transparent for transfer to the stone. lie thus may have reached the idea of reproducing nature itself. Claude Niepce assisted him in this work. At the same time, the brothers tried to recoup their finances. depleted since the failure of the “pyrcolophore,” by searching their neighborhood for a supply of stone suitable for being made into lithographic tablets. Although they were unsuccessful in this effort, Nicephore Niepce was ill 1817 recompensed for his attempt by the Société d’s Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale.

In the meantime, Claude Niepce had, in March 1816, gone first to Paris and then to England to conduct further tests and solicit support for the “pyréolopltore.” The brothers remained in constant correspondence, and their letters document Nicéphore Niepce’s subsequent invention of photography. The latter continued in his efforts to reproduce nature directly on a specially prepared surface; a letter to Claude of 5 May 1816 refers to a photographic apparatus that produced a negative image. A letter of the following 28 May adds, “l am hurrying to get these four new prints to you …” It is thus clear that Nicéphore had succeeded in fixing the images.

Nicéphore Niepce then began work on the chambers, diaphragms, and shutters that constituted his camera. In his 1816 experiments he used paper impregnated with silver chloride fixed with nitric acid; in March 1817 he began to use the Judean bitumen process of reproduction, making use of a light-sensitive lithographer’s asphalt. By 1821, he was using this method to produce images on both glass and metal, notably tin. In 1822 he recorded the first fixed positive image, which he called a “point de vue,” to distinguish it from transparency-copied engravings. In January 1826 Nicéphore Niepce received from Daguerre, then unknown to him, a letter of inquiry about his work, which he answered courteously but uninformatively, A year later, Daguerre wrote a second letter, which prompted Nicephore Niepce to make inquiries about him; in June 1827 he relented, and offered Daguerre a heliograph. The two men met when Nicéphore Niepce, alarmed by news about his brother, passed through Paris on his way to London.

In London Nicéphore Niepce discovered that his brother had been out of his senses for several years, and that the inventions about which Claude had written him—and for which he had in fact ruined himself financially—were mere follies. Disappointed, he returned to France at the beginning of 1828. His brother died a few days after his departure. Although Nicéphore Niepce was old, tired, and in debt, he still hesitated to reveal his secrets to Daguerre; it was only in October 1829 that he offered to “cooperate” with latter, and an agreement was signed on 14 December of the same year. Little is known of the development of this association, save that in 1831 Daguerre suggested to Niepce that he experiment with silver iodide. Niepce was struck by apoplexy on 3 July 1833, and died two days later.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Niepce’s only writings, apart from the patent for the pyréolophore (No. 405 at the Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle), are his letters, some of which are preserved together with some of his devices at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Others are at the Musée de Chalons and at the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

II. Secondary Literature. See Raymond Lécuyer, Histoire de la photagraphie (Paris, 1945); Georges Potonniée, Historie de la découverte de photographie (Paris, 1925); and B. Newhall, Image (New York, 1967).

The Berthollet and Carnot “Rapports sur une nouvelle machine inventee par MM. Niepce et nommée par cox pyréolophore,” are in Mémoires de la classe de sciences maihematiques et physiques de l’Institut,8 (1807), 146–153.

Robert Soulard