The claim that Niépce produced history’s first photograph is untenable

Here is proposed an essay challenging the thesis that Niépce created the first photograph in history, arguing instead that the credit belongs to Leonardo da Vinci

I do not believe that Niépce was the one who produced history’s first photograph. Nor do I believe that he ‘invented’ or ‘discovered’ it. The first photograph by Niépce is impossible.

Leggi anche in Italiano 🇮🇹

I am convinced that events unfolded differently than the established narrative suggests. In my view, the story regarding Leonardo da Vinci and the Shroud of Turin needs to be re-examined.

I harbor a profound skepticism toward the official history of photography. I always felt uneasy when I had to parrot back to my students what I read in standard history books—namely, that Niépce invented photography and that the first photograph in history was his ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’.

As I repeated the absurdities found in those books, my desire to uncover the truth behind them grew. After all, only an inattentive person could accept the claims made in official texts at face value [1][3]. Anyone else has a duty to question the official narrative we are fed and to use critical thinking to understand what lies beneath the surface.

Let us begin with the official history. Let us analyze it as an investigator would. Let us ask ourselves some simple questions. We will find that there are no answers—at least, not in those ‘official’ history books.

Point de vue du Gras (View from the window at Gras) France, 1826 or 1827, credited to be the first photograph in history made by Nicephore Niépce

Main stars:

1. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, French;
2. Louis Daguerre, French;
3. Hippolyte Bayard, French;
4. William Henry Fox-Talbot, English;
5. Antoine Florence, French living in Brazil;

Alongside these men, many other lesser-known figures—during that same early 19th-century period—began seeking a chemical method for producing images using the ‘camera obscura’ device.

So far, this is history you can read about anywhere. The following table lists the dates when they presented their discoveries—or whatever they chose to call them:

Nièpce: heliographie (made by bitumen of Judea, also known as Syrian asphalt)

Florence: photographie (made by silver salts)

Daguerre: daguerrotype (made by metal silver, halides and mercury development)

Fox-Talbot: calotype (made by silver salts)

How can one search for something one does not know exists?

That all started with a question. I asked myself: how did it occur to so many people—all at the same time and collectively—to set about ‘inventing’ something that no one had known of until then?

If something has not yet been invented, it is plausible for the idea to occur to a single person. But can this happen simultaneously to four, five, six, or more people living in different countries far apart from one another? And within the same historical period?

All this leaves me with serious doubts about the accuracy of the word ‘invention’ as it is used in history books.

Niépce’s first photograph is impossible (according to the story we’ve been told)

Don’t rush to conclusions. Please follow critical thinking.

Here’s my statement: history’s first chemical image—Niépce’s—must be a historical fabrication.

Physics compels us to draw this conclusion. Let’s see why.

Niépce supposedly produced his ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’ between 1824 and 1827. Yet, no one knows the exact date. Weird.

Historians are, however, absolutely certain that this image was exposed to the sun for eight hours. I cannot believe this official account is possible.

Accepting this claim would require us to revise everything we know about astrophysics. After all, the sun would have had to stand still for eight hours in front of the Le Gras window for the shadows beneath the rooftops to appear so clearly.
Or perhaps Niépce knew Photoshop—in which case, we need to rewrite history all over again.

Whichever way you look at it, the shadows under the roofs are clearly visible; yet, over eight hours, the sun moves from one side of the horizon to the other, casting light from every direction. There is no way to see a sharp shadow after eight hours of movement.

And yet, the eminent figures who write history—and those who teach it—all agree that this is how it happened. And I say to myself whatever became of critical thinking?

Was Niépce murdered by Daguerre?

I will pass over the circumstances of Niépce’s death, as I lack sufficient information to discuss it. However, I encourage anyone interested in exploring this matter further to look up accounts suggesting a probable murder committed by Daguerre against him. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was Niépce’s partner; the two were researching chemical methods for capturing images using light.

Just keep in mind that the two partners where about to unveil a process that would have casted both to eternal glory, and made both rich. In facts, Daguerre received a lifetime grant from Academie de France for his invention. He and the only one to reap the rewards of such a work, the only one to win the rush to Photography in France.

Heliography by Niépce

Niépce’s ‘heliography’ was a rather raw process for the goals the two partners (Niépce and Daguerre) had set for themselves.

It involved using a wooden tablet coated with Bitumen of Judea—a type of bitumen (tar) that hardened upon exposure to light. The parts that remained soft could be washed away using lavender oil. The resulting image was so rough that a good deal of imagination was required to discern what had been taken (see the first photo in the article).

Researching for other compounds

Other chemicals were being put to the test. Daguerre was working on his ‘daguerreotype’ an image made on a silver plate. He developed a process involving sensitizing a silver plate with iodide and bromide, then using mercury vapours to reveal the image.

Following his partner’s death, he became the sole beneficiary of his new process. Its commercialization made him extremely wealthy. He even secured a lifetime pension from the French government in recognition of his artistic achievements. He—and his heirs—lived the rest of their lives free from financial worry.

Florence mints the word ‘photographie’—meaning ‘drawing with light’

Meanwhile, the word ‘photographie/ (photography—that is, drawing with light) emerged, sparking a dispute over who had invented this art form first.

The word ‘photographie; was used for the first time in 1834 by Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence, as documented in Boris Kossoy’s book *Hercule Florence: A descoberta isolada da fotografia no Brasil* (Edusp, 2006) [4].

Florence, a French citizen living in Brazil. In the early 1830s, he conducted chemical experiments and discovered the properties of silver nitrate as a reagent that turns black upon exposure to light.

Antoine Florence’s photographic process: ‘polygraphie’

His invention involved coating a sheet of paper with a silver nitrate solution. Silver nitrate itself has no light sensitivity. But once blended or mixed to oxidizing compunds, such as those included in the paper paste, it becomes light-sensitive. So it acquires property of turning black directly upon exposure to light Florence had thus invented a self-developing system.

As the sheet emerged from the *camera obscura*—that is, after exposure—the image began to appear. It was highly defined, even though the texture of the paper substrate obscured the finer details.

He described his first ‘polygraphie’ in 1833. He noted the word ‘photographie’ in his diary for the first time in 1834. [5]

Portrait of Hercule Florence, ca. 1875. Courtesy Instituto Hercule Florence (Arnaldo Machado Florence Archive), São Paulo

Sir John Herschel uses the word ‘photography’—but too late

Florence learned of the public presentations of the daguerreotype at the Académie des Sciences in France in 1839. That same year, Sir John Herschel used the word ‘photography’ before the Royal Society of London.

Florence hastened to write to the Académie des Sciences himself, claiming that he had actually been the first to invent a silver-salt chemical process and to coin the word ‘photographie’ [2].
But no one ever replied to him. His letter fell into oblivion. Vested interests?

A biased plot to favor Louis Daguerre?

French scholars, led by François Arago, conspired [3] [4] to favor Louis Daguerre and his invention over other proposals.

Daguerre’s system – an image on a metal plate – was the finest among the systems of the era. It offered unsurpassed richness of detail and met with enormous public success.

Hippolyte Bayard sidelined

Bayard, meanwhile, was completely sidelined—so much so that he created his famous 1840 image *En mort* (In Death), a self-portrait depicting himself as a suicide victim, intended as a provocation against the Academy’s neglect.

William Henry Fox Talbot fared better. As an Englishman, he could not be stopped by French barricades.

William Henry Fox Talbot’s negative to positive process

William Henry Fox Talbot was English. Fortunately for him, his nation and the Crown were keen to secure a place in history, so he was able to present his discovery to the Royal Society of London in 1839.

Fox Talbot chose the silver chloride method. When coated onto a sheet of paper, the material required development after exposure; it produced a negative that could be contact-printed to create a positive (the final print).

The image lacked fine detail because the texture of the paper was recorded along with the image itself, partially obscuring the minute details captured by the lens.

Process negative to positive to go down in history

History would ultimately vindicate him, as his negative to positive process and silver halide emulsions (chloride, bromide, iodide, nitrate) became the foundation upon which photography would develop for the next century and a half.

The ‘calotype’—or ‘talbotype’—that is, the positive/negative process, was perhaps introduced to the public somewhat prematurely. It had not yet been perfected. Yet Fox-Talbot could not afford to wait; otherwise, Daguerre would have secured a total monopoly on the invention of chemical photography.

To honor their distinguished fellow countryman and counter French dominance in this new field, the British awarded William Henry Fox-Talbot the title of Sir.

Nevertheless, it was the daguerreotype that achieved fame. It was sharp, durable, pocket-sized, and appealing. Thanks to it, Daguerre would become immensely wealthy.

Calotype and newspapers

Calotype was relegated to professional and photojournalistic use. It was not as aesthetically pleasing as a painting, so why would one buy one to hang at home? However, thanks to its ability to produce multiple identical prints and its ease of transport—involving paper rather than heavy silver or iron plates—it proved useful for documenting news events in the newspapers of the day.

Indeed, Roger Fenton chose it to photograph the Crimean campaign of Her Majesty’s army. The resulting photographs could be printed in newspapers, marking the first instance of photojournalism in the history of photography.

Could four people, far apart from one another, really have invented the same thing at the same time?

So far, this is documented history. Yet, if you look away from the books for a moment, can you truly believe that four people could invent the same thing simultaneously? And, alongside them, dozens of other scholars—such as Bayard and many others—seeking a chemical method to capture light, all during the same historical period?

I cannot. Logic tells us there must be something more—something discovered even before these scholars set to work. A prior, more ancient knowledge.

An unknown work from the past and the race to photography

Let us imagine, for a moment, an unfinished work from the past that fired the imagination. This would have sparked what I call the ‘race to photography‘—that is, the race to test a thousand different substances until finding the one used to create that extraordinary work.

In 1797, a significant event occurred—one never described in any history of photography book. Giovanni Battista Venturi published a study in which he deciphered one of Leonardo da Vinci’s codices: his ‘Essai sur les ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Léonard de Vinci’ (Paris, 1797). In this work, Venturi deciphered all the studies Leonardo had conducted in the field of optics using his camera obscura in Vinci, his hometown near Florence, in Tuscany.

Leonardo da Vinci: a proposed hypothesis

Leonardo was deeply engaged in the study of the camera obscura. Over the course of his research, he sketched approximately 270 diagrams illustrating how the device functioned.

Moreover, he experimented with various aperture sizes and with aperture shapes other than the circle. His notes record studies of relative aperture values ​​of 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 16, 24, 28, and 32. In his anatomical studies, he drew parallels between the workings of the human eye and those of the camera obscura. He worked diligently to demonstrate the fundamental principles of the emerging science of optics—such as the way images are inverted both vertically and horizontally when passing through a pinhole or the pupil of the eye. [6]

Perhaps some of our early 19th-century counterparts gleaned even more… Could Leonardo have left behind an actual ‘photograph’?

Pure imagination? One thing is certain: we should not give credence to the absurdities regarding the birth of photography that are still propagated today by museums, history books, and journalists around the world.

In the next article on Leonardo da Vinci, I will present my thesis regarding the invention of photography. In my view, the credit belongs to this Renaissance genius, who would thus have been history’s first photographer.

Michele Pero

bibliography and references

[1] History of photography, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – First photograph, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin – Fotografia, Enciclopedia Treccani

[2] Light Writing in the Tropics: The Story of Hercule Florence, by Natalia Brizuela

[3] Daguerre and the invention of Photography, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

[4] Boris Kossoy “Hercule Florence, a descoberta isolada da fotografia no Brasil”, Edusp, 2006

[5] Enciclopédia Itaù Cultural

[6] Leonardo studies