France to display world’s first photograph after two centuries
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Nearly two centuries after its creation, the photograph considered the first in history will return to France.
Nicéphore Niépce captured the image, titled “Point de vue du Gras”, in 1827 or 1826 at his home in Saint-Loup-de-Varen, Burgundy. The photograph depicts the view from his window and shows a garden landscape on a tin plate coated with bitumen. Niépce presented the image to the Royal Society in London that same year, but the society did not accept it.
The photograph remained lost until historian Helmut Gernsheim discovered it in luggage he received in the 1950s. The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, has held the photograph and will now lend it to France. The French Ministry of Culture announced the photograph will be displayed at a museum dedicated to Niépce in Salon-sur-Saône from late April to late June 2027.
This exhibition, titled “The Shadow of the Sun. 1826-1827, Niépce invents photography”, will also feature Niépce’s documents from French public collections, and is part of a year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of photography’s invention, which includes over 1,000 events.
