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was thoroughly awe-struck by Daguerre’s renowned
Diorama, yet he remained skeptical about sharing his
secrets, given Daguerre’s lack of proven experience
in fi xing the action of light (Daguerre’s efforts in this
regard had consisted of transitory images made in phos-
phorescent materials). At the same time he was clearly
impressed by the ambition and energy of the worldly
Daguerre, whose forward thinking and business acumen
might bring about the long sought-after success.
Niépce’s efforts to fi nd interest in his Heliography
in London were largely disappointed, owing both to his
own reticence about the details of his process, and to the
lack of visibly dramatic results to his process. At Kew,
where Claude was living, Niépce met the King’s Head
Gardener, William Townsend Aiton, who arranged for
the examples of Niépce’s heliography and engravings
pulled from heliographic plates to be sent to Windsor
Castle and displayed alongside other items of contem-
porary scientifi c interest. The King’s reaction, if any,
is unknown, and the items were returned without com-
ment. Aiton then introduced Niépce to Francis Bauer,
painter in residence at the Royal Botanical Gardens and
member of the Royal Society. Attempts to fi nd support
from the Royal Society were met with tentative interest
but no great result, nor did Niépce succeed in efforts to
arouse interest among members of the Society of Arts.
Bauer, however, remained supportive, and on departing
for France, Niépce presented him with several examples
of his work, including the View from the Window at
Le Gras, framed like a presentation piece. This was
inscribed on the back, by Bauer, “Monsieur Niépce’s
fi rst successful experiment in fi xing permanently the
image from nature.”
On his return to France in early 1828 (Claude had
died shortly after the Niépces departed), Niépce immedi-
ately sought to remedy the faintness of the heliographic
image, acquiring new lenses from Chevalier, including
William Wollaston’s periscopic lens. To strengthen the
image he proposed using a silver-coated copper plate
rather than pewter as the base for the bitumen layer.
Following exposure the plate would be held in contact
with iodine fumes, which reacted with the bare metal,
turning it dark. The bitumen could then be dissolved,
leaving the plate refl ective in the light areas, and black-
ened in the dark areas. This allowed for greater contrast
and tonal range, as well as for a clearly positive image.
He further sought to fi nd a way to lighten those areas
exposed to light.
On 14 December 1829, Niépce and Daguerre for-
mally entered into business together. Their provisional
agreement was for a ten-year partnership, the goal of
which was for Daguerre to assist in perfecting Niépce’s
invention, both men sharing information freely with the
other. As a result of the agreement Niépce drew up a
“Note on Heliography,” laying out the process for his
partner. Daguerre procured new achromatic lenses for
Niépce. While Daguerre traveled to Saint-Loup-de-
Varennes on three recorded occasions, the bulk of the
exchange between the two partners took the form of
written correspondence, in which Niépce and Daguerre
employed a numerical code to disguise the specifi c
formulas and procedures under consideration, lest they
be stolen before offi cially unveiled.
In 1832 the partners devised an essentially new
process that they called the Physautotype (a neolo-
gism meaning, roughly, nature’s self-image). Instead
of bitumen this process used a whitish resin extracted
from oil of lavender, which left a light coating affi xed
to the plate where it had been exposed to light, once it
was developed in the vapors of white petroleum (Mari-
gnier, “Physautotype,” 357–358). As with the improved
Heliograph, no examples of the Physautotype appear
to have survived, although both processes have been
successfully recreated based on Niépce’s notes (see
Marignier, Niépce). Another possible improvement, a
heliographic picture on glass depicting a table prepared
for a meal, no longer survives but was reproduced in
1891, in a form that suggests that it possessed consid-
erable tonal gradation.
Niépce died suddenly in 1833, without having real-
ized public success with his techniques. In1835, the part-
nership was renegotiated between Daguerre and Isidore,
to the benefi t of Daguerre, who assumed a dominant role
in the enterprise, and again renegotiated in 1837 to give
the name Daguerreotype to the now much advanced
process (Batchen, 25). When the Daguerreotype was
announced in 1839, although still within the original
ten-year partnership term, emphasis was placed on
the single-handed advancements made by Daguerre to
salvage the ultimately impractical technique of Niépce.
Defenders of Niépce, beginning with Isidore in 1840,
have sought to solidify his position as the inventor of
photography. In a historical irony, Daguerre’s implicit
claim to have invented the process that bore his name
led to Niépce’s fi rst posthumous fame. Hearing of the
Daguerreotype in 1839, Francis Bauer wrote a lengthy
letter to the Literary Gazette of London declaring that
Niépce had invented substantially the same technique
some ten years previously. In response, a display was
arranged at the Royal Society by Sir Charles Wheat-
stone (Smith, 49). Both William Henry Fox Talbot
and Sir John Herschel saw Niépce’s work in 1839, the
latter declaring Niépce to be the obvious originator of
Daguerre’s technique, while crediting Daguerre with
shortening the exposure time from several hours to as
many minutes.
The dreams of both Nicéphore and his brother Claude
to realize their fortunes through invention were never re-
alized, and in the wake of Nicéphore’s death in 1833 the
family estate was sold to cover the many debts accrued