Who was Nicéphore Niépce and what did he invent?

Nicéphore Niépce was a French inventor born in 1765 who pioneered photography by developing heliography in the 1820s. Using a primitive camera, he produced the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Alongside his brother Claude, he also co-created the Pyréolophore, which was one of the world's first internal combustion engines and the first to power a boat.

What we know

• Nicéphore Niépce developed heliography, a technique used to create the world's oldest surviving photographic process products. [2]
• In the mid-1820s, Niépce used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. [2]
• Niépce conceived, created, and developed the Pyréolophore internal combustion engine with his older brother Claude Niépce. [2, 4]
• Napoleon Bonaparte granted a patent for the Pyréolophore in July 1807 after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône. [4]

Where to go next

• how it workedHow did the Pyréolophore engine work?
• whoWhat was Claude Niépce's role in their inventions?
• what followedHow did early photography develop from heliography?
• compared withWhat was the de Rivaz engine?
• the bigger pictureFrench inventors of the 18th and 19th centuries
• an unexpected connectionHow does French resistance photography connect to Nicéphore Niépce?Janine Niépce, a later French photographer and journalist who developed films for the French Resistance, shared a direct lineage with the family of photography pioneer Nicéphore Niépce.

Sources

• [1]Nicéphore Niépce (Wikidata Q188342) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Nicéphore Niépce · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Claude Niépce · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Pyréolophore · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Janine Niépce · CC BY-SA 4.0