1004
In 1816, with the ten-year patent on the Pyréolophore
due to expire the following year, work on the boat engine
was taken up again in earnest. The brothers experi-
mented with liquid instead of powdered fuel, including
an asphalt known as Bitumen of Judea, and developed
what stands as the fi rst fuel-injection system (Harden-
berg, 78). At the same time, Claude moved to Paris, in
search of supporting partners for the enterprise. When
patent renewal in France was rejected, despite several
improvements to the device, Claude moved to London,
submitting a letter of patent in 1817. With Claude
permanently away from Chalon in 1816, Nicéphore
began his fi rst experiments with the camera obscura
and light-sensitive materials. From this point forward,
Claude would largely take responsibility for the boat
engine, while Nicéphore turned increasingly to experi-
ments in what he would come to call Heliography, or
sun-writing, which he undertook in a workroom at the
Niépce family estate, Le Gras, in the village of Saint-
Loup-de-Varennes, near Chalon.
Niépce’s fi rst experiments with light-sensitive mate-
rials placed in a homemade camera obscura were con-
ducted in 1816. He succeeded in taking impressions of
views out of his workroom window using paper coated
with muriate (or chloride) of silver, but the images were
not permanent. Moreover, they were negative images,
and attempts to print them in the positive were not suc-
cessful. At the same time, he experimented with the use
of light-sensitive resins on stones or plates, with the
intention of etching the images thereby made, and then
using the etched plates for ink printing. He foresaw his
greatest success lying in this direction: etching would
render the fl eeting image permanent, and printing would
allow its endless reproduction.
It was at this point that he began to experiment
with bitumen of Judea (previously used as a fuel for
the brothers’ engine) as a light-sensitive coating. The
bitumen, he had discovered, hardened when exposed to
the sun’s rays, whereas parts that had not been exposed
could be dissolved and washed away by oil of lavender.
The result was a fi ne image formed where light had
fallen. His fi rst success with this technique, in 1822,
was made by placing an oiled engraving of Pope Pius
VII directly on a glass plate coated with a thin layer
of bitumen. The image, which was later accidentally
destroyed, would have been a negative impression of
the engraving. Niépce then turned to applying this
process to pewter plates, which he etched in acid, the
plate being receptive to the acid in precisely those parts
where the lines occurred in the original engraving, and
resistant where the exposed bitumen formed a barrier.
The etched plate could then be printed in the traditional
manner. In 1826, Niépce used this technique to copy an
engraving of Cardinal d’Ambroise by Isaac Briot onto
pewter plates. He enlisted a Paris engraver, Augustin
François Lemaître, to etch the plates and pull prints for
him, with considerable success. This technique would
come to be called heliogravure.
Niépce envisioned adapting this process to the cam-
era, so that images made from nature could be etched
and printed. While never realizing this goal, he was able
to capture a faint reverse image of a camera view onto
polished stone as early as 1824, though attempts to etch
the stone and bring out the nearly invisible image may
well have destroyed it altogether. In 1826 he turned
increasingly to pewter plates, the refl ective surface of
which rendered the image more clearly visible, and he
acquired more sophisticated equipment from renowned
opticians Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris, pur-
chasing a camera and several lenses. He began to refer
to his efforts to take directly the image of nature as
“heliographic,” i.e., drawn by the sun. The View from
the Window at Le Gras, in the Gernsheim Collection
of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
of the University of Texas at Austin, is an especially
durable example of this technique and seems to have
been viewed as a signifi cant accomplishment by Niépce
himself. The view out his workroom window, onto the
chicken house and fi elds, was one that Niépce’s letters
describe repeatedly as a subject for his attempts with a
camera, starting in 1816 with his silver-chloride images
on paper. The large heliographic plate (measuring 20.3
× 16.5 centimeters) carries a faint coating of bitumen
where light struck the plate within the camera; by view-
ing the plate at an appropriate angle one sees the shadow
areas, refl ected in the bare pewter, appearing dark in
contrast to the relatively light fi lm of bitumen, the result
being a legible, if elusive, positive picture of the estate’s
buildings and the landscape beyond. The exposure time
for this image is not known; estimates range from eight
hours, proposed by Helmut Gernsheim, who recovered
the specimen in 1952, to three or more days, the latter
assertion being consistent with attempts to recreate the
technique as well as in line with evidence from Niépce’s
letters (Marignier, “Heliography,” 58).
Whether produced in 1826 or, as seems more likely
given his increasingly excited letters, 1827, the View
from the Window at Le Gras was in any case executed
prior to September, 1827, when Niépce brought it to
London, via Paris, with an assortment of examples of
his technique, now christened Héliographie. On the
way to London with Agnès, to visit Claude who had
fallen ill, Niépce met with Daguerre, who had written
to him in early 1826 after hearing of his experiments.
Daguerre was eager to learn the technique devised by
Niépce, who for his part was reluctant to share his fi nd-
ings. Niépce had eventually relented and sent Daguerre
an example of an etched heliographic plate. Daguerre
had responded with criticisms and suggestions but with
overall enthusiasm. Visiting Daguerre in Paris, Niépce