HF The History of Photography 600pág

Heliography 61
For the subsequent history of these photographic incunabula, and of another plate
which Niepce presented to his landlord, the reader is referred to our detailed accounts
in The Photographic ]ournal11 in which also the full French text of Niepce's memoir
will be found. It is surprising that none of the French historians had any knowledge
of the existence of these Niepce relics in England. More astonishing still is the fact
that one of them, the photograph from nature, which disappeared in 1898, was
always spoken of, and even exhibited as 'a view of Kew', until we drew attention
to the fallacy twenty months before the picture came to light again in a trunk which
had been in storage since 1917. The world's first photograph can therefore truly be
said to have been rediscovered in more than one sense.
While in Paris on the way home, Niepce had several meetings with Daguerre,
whose acquaintance he had made on the outward journey. Their first contact dates
from January 1826-the time when Niepce ordered a camera obscura from the
Chevaliers. Niepce had asked his cousin, who was going to Paris, to buy the instrument
for him, and in his zeal to make sure that he was getting the best possible
Colonel Niepce explained the purpose for which it was required, and when the
Chevaliers seemed somewhat incredulous even showed them a specimen of heliography.
Daguerre, who had also been trying for at least a year to fix the images of
the camera obscura by means of silver chloride paper, and phosphorus, happened
soon after to visit the Chevaliers, with whom he was friendly, and they advised him
to write at once to Niepce, who had already achieved such remarkable results.
Niepce received Daguerre's overtures with great reserve, and it was sixteen months
before he succumbed to his persistence and sent him a heliographic printing-plate
representing the Holy Family, and a proof from it, in exchange for a dessin fume
which Daguerre had sent him. In all this, the two inventors were very secretive about
their methods; in fact Daguerre's bait had not been produced by photographic
means at all, but Niepce was unaware of this.
For a few months after his return from England Niepce was much occupied in
putting his brother's affairs in order, for Claude had died about a fortnight after
Nicephore left Kew. The Pyreolophore, on which thirty years' work had been
lavished, and as a consequence of which the Niepce family had got hopelessly into
debt, was now abandoned. Niepce did not resume his photographic experiments
until May 1828, when he tried two new lenses, an achromatic one, and Wollaston's
periscopic meniscus lens, both of which Chevalier made for him. Though Wollaston's
periscopic camera obscura had been introduced in England as early as 1812,12
the optical arrangement was still a novelty in France, and only came to be generally
introduced by Chevalier in I 829.
Fully aware that the camera view he had taken to London was still far from what
he desired, Niepce ascribed its imperfections, and in particular the very long exposure
time, to the various lenses he had so far been using. On 20 August 1828 he wrote
to Lemaitre,
I have now entirely given up copying engravings, and restrict myself to views
taken with the perfected camera obscura of Wollaston. The periscopic lenses have
given results much superior to those which I obtained up to the present with
ordinary lenses, and even with the meniscus prism of V. Chevalier. My sole object
having become to copy nature with the greatest fidelity, it is to that which I attach
myself exclusively, for only when I have succeeded with this, can I seriously
occupy myself with the different modes of application of which my discovery
is capable.