The story behind the photograph…

’View from the Window at Le Gras’ is the earliest surviving photograph in existence. It was created around 1826 by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), and it depicts part of his country estate, Le Gras, as seen from a high window. Niépce used a camera obscura to make the image, and – after much trial and error – employed bitumen of Judea spread over a pewter plate. During an exposure time of some eight hours, light hardened the bitumen where it hit; the unhardened bitumen was then washed away with lavender oil, revealing a rudimentary image of rooftops and countryside. Niépce was secretive about the processes he used for his ‘heliography’ (‘light writing’), and his work was not recognized by the Royal Society in London, which he visited in 1827. However, he was championed by botanical illustrator Francis Bauer, to whom he donated the photograph and other specimens. The photograph disappeared after 1905, but was tracked down in 1952 by photo historian Helmut Gernsheim. It is now housed at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.