HF The History of Photography 600pág

interesting department of heliography'. How far-seeing this notion was, the subsequent
history of photography was to prove.
Only one of these glass photographs is known. It represents a table laid for a meal Pl 24
(as a change from the much-repeated view from his window) and has often been
mistakenly published-with wrong date attibutions, usually 1822 or 1823-as Niepce's
first photograph from nature. In his communication to the Royal Society Niepce
stated that Daguerre had advised him not to neglect the application of his process on
glass, a material which we know Niepce had already used for his first successful engraving,
of Pius VII, in 1822. However, there is no documentary evidence of any
engravings or views from nature executed on glass between 1822 and January 1829,
when Niepce ordered a supply of glass plates. Niepce's correspondence with his
brother contains no reference to any still-life subject; the only camera photographs
mentioned are of the view at Gras. From the fact that Daguerre's own (later) experimental
pictures were all of still-life subjects, Potonniee inferred that this one was
probably made under Daguerre's influence some time after the signing of the
partnership agreement. This is quite possible, but at the same time we should bear
in mind that two glass pictures are mentioned before the agreement was signed.
Nothing remains of this still-life but a rather poor half-tone reproduction made
in 1891. Unfortunately the original glass picture, like that of Pius VII, was brokenand
in the most extraordinary circumstances. In 1909 it was lent by the Societe
Frarn;:aise de Photographie to Peignot, a professor at the Conservatoire des Arts et
Metiers, for scientific tests. The purpose of these is rather mysterious, since Niepce
had fully described his process ; nor shall we ever know the professor's findings, for
Peignot, seized one day with a fit of mania, smashed everything in his laboratory,
including this photographic incunabulum.13 Thus, all but one of Niepce's few attempts
at a photograph from nature have been lost. The inventor died in 18 3 3 without ever
seeing his process brought to perfection, and his widow and son were obliged to sell
their entire property. A life's work and a great deal of money had been lavished on
an idea.
Twenty years after Niepce's death his cousin Abel Niepce de Saint-Victor, in collaboration
with Lemaitre, took up the process again, and by various modifications
speeded up the exposure to a few minutes for laid-on copies, and 10-r 5 minutes in
the case of views in the camera.14 Two years later he fulfilled Nicephore Niepce's
ambition to take a photograph in the camera, etch it, and pull paper prints from it.15
Thus Nicephore Niepce's process was capable of improvement and practical application,
though Daguerre's experiments had led him in a different direction.
Niepce's cameras. As mentioned on page 55, Niepce's earliest experiments were
made with three locally made cameras. The first we hear of on 12 April 1816. It was
a 6-in. square box with a lens-tube adjustable for focusing. Almost immediately he
broke the lens, and then made a tiny camera out of Isidore's jewel-box (approx.
3·6 cm. x 4 cm.) and fitted it with one of the lenses from his grandfather's solar
microscope. This gave a sharp image just under 3 cm. in diameter. On 9 May Niepce
mentions having made another camera of intermediate size between the small and
the large one, and again using one of the microscope lenses. These cameras no longer
exist. We have also previously referred to Niepce's first professionally made camera,
bought from Chevalier in January r 826, which does not appear to have survived,
either, nor have any of the various lenses mentioned.
In the Musee Denon at Chalon-sur-Saone are preserved several cameras which are
not dated but were probably used by Niepce between 1826 and his death in 1833.
They are fairly large, being made to take 6t in. x 8 in. plates, and are the earliest
Heliography 63