Profile of the Day: Nicéphore Niépce

On this day in 1765, French inventor Nicéphore Niépce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône-et-Loire, France. He is best remembered as the inventor of photography and one of the most important pioneers of the field.

Nicéphore Niépce / Wikimedia Commons

The son of a wealthy lawyer, Niépce’s entire family fled during the French Revolution, but he returned to serve in the French army under Napoleon. After returning home to manage his family’s estate, Niépce developed an interest in science. In 1807, together with his brother Claude, Niépce invented the world’s first combustion engine called the pyrélophore.

However, Niépce would best be remembered for his revolutionary work in photography. Intrigued by the new technique of lithography, Niépce began to explore ways to capture an image using light. He developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s earliest known permanent photograph of a real-world scene.

Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras taken 1826 or 1827. It’s the earliest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. / Wikimedia Commons

He later partnered with Louis Daguerre and together they worked to further develop and refine the photographing process. Their partnership continued until Niépce’s sudden death in 1833. Leaving his notes to his partner, Daguerre would continue their work and experiments and eventually develop the daguerreotype, the first publicly available photographic process.

Nicéphore Niépce is connected to over 176 million people in Geni’s World Family Tree. How are you related?

View Nicéphore Niépce’s Geni Profile