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Portrait of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce inventor of photography: from a bust modeled by his son Isidore Niépce, Nicéphore  (Isidore, 1795-1868)


Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833) was a French inventor, usually credited as the inventor of photography and a pioneer in that field. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving product of a photographic process which would also form the basis of photogravure: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce’s other inventions was the Pyréolophore, the world’s first internal combustion engine, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude. Portrait of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce from a bust modeled by his son Isidore.