The First Photograph
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The Discovery
"Your nightmare existence in a trunk is over... At long last you will be recognized as the inventor of photography. This picture will prove it to all the world." —Helmut Gernsheim
The following firsthand account is taken from Helmut Gernsheim's article, "The 150th Anniversary of Photography," in History of Photography, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1977:
Ed Malcik.
Helmut Gernsheim at the Ransom Center during an interview.
1978.
Gelatin silver print.
25.4 x 20.3 cm.
One hundred and fifty years ago [Summer 1826] Joseph Nicéphore Niépce succeeded in obtaining a camera picture on a polished pewter plate, sensitized with bitumen of Judea. This material has the unusual property of hardening in light (not blackening like silver salts) but its light sensitivity is small. Niépce needed 8-10 h[ours] exposure in sunshine. He named his invention "heliography." After dissolving the unexposed parts of the picture in oil of turpentine and rinsing the plate, there remained, without the need for any other fixing, a permanent bitumen image of the light drawing, the shadows being indicated by the bare pewter plate. To avoid a lateral reversal of the view, Niépce had employed a prism in front of his achromatic lens. He had obtained both components from the Parisian optician [Charles] Chevalier when he purchased his first professional camera in January that year. After using glass, lithographic stone and zinc for previous experiments, he had ordered the pewter plates in May 1826.
The 16 x 20 cm view...shows the courtyard of his country estate Le Gras in the village of St. Loup-de-Varennes, and was taken from an upper window...Niépce repeated the view once more on a copper plate in 1829, and sent it to [Louis Jacques Mandé] Daguerre before signing a partnership agreement with him on 14th December. Neither the earlier nor the later picture has survived...
My rediscovery...in February 1952 proved Niépce's invention of photography beyond any shadow of a doubt, eleven years before the first daguerreotype, and nine years before [William Henry Fox] Talbot's first camera image. Previously, the year 1839 had been arbitrarily selected as the birthday of photography, on account of the publication in that year of both photogenic drawing and the daguerreotype process. Henceforth 1826 was considered as the correct date...
In three years of research my wife [Alison] and I traced all the five heliographs Niépce had brought to England in 1827, their presentation to [Francis] Bauer, their sale at his death in 1841 (for £14.4s.0d.) to Dr. Robert Brown FRS, and finally to J.J. Bennett FRS. At Bennett's sale in 1884 the relics were split between H.P. Robinson and H. Baden Pritchard, editor of the Photographic News. In 1924, Robinson's acquisitions, three heliographic reproductions and one print of the Cardinal [d'Amboise, a photoetching], were presented to the Royal Photographic Society by his son. The Society, in turn, lent them to the Science Museum, South Kensington, for exhibition. Pritchard had bought the camera picture, the second print of the Cardinal, and Niépce's manuscript memoir Notice sur L'Heliographie. They were the far more important relics, but the new owner was to enjoy his treasure only briefly, for a fortnight after the auction he died of a heart attack...Both Mr. Pritchard's widow and Mr. Robinson exhibited their treasures at the International Inventions Exhibition in London in 1885 and at the great retrospective Crystal Palace Photographic Exhibition in London in 1898.
It must not be assumed that all these facts emerged in their order of occurrence. Instead, there was a gradual unfolding of information in the most diverse places, information found while we were looking for something else, or in the catalogues just bought. One needs a trail before one can follow it, and we had none. In particular, we could find no further trace of the Pritchard items after 1898. In the hope of obtaining information from a descendant, or anyone else who might have acquired the treasure meanwhile, I sent a letter to The Times in April 1948, giving a brief history of the sequence we had established. Unfortunately, my appeal was ignored, as was a more urgent request in January 1950. Not long afterwards the art editor of The Observer made contact with me over my rediscovery of Lewis Carroll's hobby, which caused a sensation in art and literary circles. He immediately agreed to support my appeal concerning the lost Niépce treasure. Its publication in April 1950 brought an immediate reply from Mr. Pritchard's son, a piece of luck, considering that no less than four Sunday papers are published in London. Mr. Pritchard remembered the Niépce relics, but asserted they had not been returned to his mother after the exhibition in 1898. Whether they had got lost or had been stolen he was unable to say, but he remembered how upset his mother had been. He could not remember to whom his mother had sent a complaint, and felt that my search would be in vain. This appeared to be final, and it seemed that I would have to accept the bitter truth...
A year and a half passed. We were in the middle of preparations for the historical section of the World Exhibition of Photography in Lucerne, Switzerland, when one day my wife came running to me in great excitement, holding a piece of paper in the air, like Chamberlain in 1938, and shouted in triumph: "'The Niépce's photographs have been found,' writes Mrs. Pritchard." Dumbfounded I read that her husband had died some months before. Going through his estate, a big trunk that had been in a London depository since 1917 had to be opened. Among old clothes, books and other family relics belonging to his mother (who had died in 1917) Mrs. Pritchard had found the Niépce items I had been searching for. She regretted to have to tell me that the picture had completely faded. There was nothing to be seen.
Impatient to see the treasure trove for myself, for I knew that a bitumen picture could not fade, I telephoned to inquire when I could come. A lady companion answered that Mrs. Pritchard was in bed with a cold, but would write to me as soon as she was well again. A month passed. At last came the day which I shall never forget: 14 February 1952...
During lunch I had to tell the ladies about my collection, how I found the [Lewis] Carroll albums, and what had given me the idea to search for the Niépce pictures. They expressed interest in my books, which I said I would send. We chatted about our forthcoming exhibition in Lucerne, and I promised to take greetings to a relation, director of the leading hotel there. Meanwhile coffee was served in the sitting room and the great moment could not be far off, when Sherlock Holmes II would at last be allowed to inspect the treasure he had been trailing for six years. Reading my thoughts Mrs. Pritchard got up, handed me a handsome mirror in a broad gold frame and said "That's it. You will be disappointed, but I had warned you that there was nothing left of a picture."
I was startled. I had not expected a looking glass, nor an Empire frame in which the pewter plate lay like a painting. I went to the window, held the plate at an angle to the light, as one does with daguerreotypes. No image was to be seen. Then I increased the angle—and suddenly the entire courtyard scene unfolded itself in front of my eyes. The ladies were speechless. Was I practicing black magic on them? Then I turned the picture and read Francis Bauer's French and English inscription: "Monsieur Niépce's first successful experiment of fixing permanently the image from Nature," and the date below, 1827. Only a historian can understand my feeling at that moment. I had reached the goal of my research and held the foundation stone of photography in my hand. I felt myself in communication with Niépce. Your nightmare existence in a trunk is over," I thought. "[George] Potonniée was right. At long last you will be recognized as the inventor of photography. This picture will prove it to all the world."
Addressing the ladies I said: "This find is of the utmost importance for photography. It proves Niépce to have been the inventor, advances the date of the invention from 1839 to 1826, and, last but not least, establishes the correct subject. It shows the courtyard of Niépce's country house, as I predicted nearly two years ago. May I have your permission to take these three incunabula with me, and reproduce them for my intended publication? For 125 years these vital documents had been in Britain, but not one of the former owners had taken the trouble to investigate them. "A splendid idea," replied Mrs. Pritchard, "but tell me why did you mention 1826 as the date of the heliograph when the label says 1827?" I explained that 1827 was the date of presentation to the Royal Society, and the handwriting that of Bauer, not Niépce. "If the picture was taken on a pewter plate, which has still to be established, the date is almost certainly 1826. For in that year Niépce had bought his first professional camera and pewter plates. He was anxious to try them out, and why should he have waited for a year before making an experiment? Moreover, we know that his best reproduction ever, the Cardinal, was taken in 1826 on a pewter plate, and so I see no reason to assume that this view was made later."
Anticipation of my triumph as a historian brought me back with a jolt to my dilemma as a collector. The die was not yet cast. Remembering the lady companion's remark during the drive, and the favorable impression the examination had obviously left behind, I asked Mrs. Pritchard point blank: "What will happen to this treasure trove after my publication? For 54 years it was lost sight of. Don't you think they should now enter a photographic collection and be secured there for posterity? You have read of my attempts to form a National Collection. That of the Royal [Photographic Society] is not open to the public, and from my experience as a member—I am a Fellow—I am aware of their difficulties to find anything I want to see. I intend to arrange an exhibition every year in a different country. How wonderful it would be to start it with Niépce. Daguerre and Talbot are already represented." I paused for a possible reaction. In the absence of a remark I continued: "Gutenberg's monument of printing, the 42-line Bible, exists in at least six copies. This first photograph is unique. It must not get lost again." My comparison with Gutenberg startled her to inquire: "How much do you think the photograph is worth?" "Priceless," I replied. "Whatever sum I might name you, after my publication someone will probably offer you more. Or, if not then, in ten or twenty years' time. But, if you take this picture tomorrow to any picture dealer you know, he will offer you ten shillings for the frame and throw the plate away. Like you, he will say: "I am afraid this is only a mirror. I can't offer this to anyone as a photographic picture, madam. Not even Mr. Gernsheim would buy it." Turning to her friend, Mrs. Pritchard said: "I think Mr. Gernsheim has a good point there, don't you think?," and then to me: "You have pleaded the cause very well. I am sure no one could look after these historic items better than yourself. You shall have them."
That evening my wife and I celebrated the event. It is not always that research leads one to the goal, and ours had been royally rewarded...
May I conclude on a personal note. Museums and other public institutions often turn gifts into cash when it suits them. I wanted to avoid anyone saying the same of me. So I passed my priceless Niépce items on to the University of Texas as I had received them, without valuation, when the Gernsheim Collection was acquired by that institution in 1964.
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