# View from the Window at Le Gras > Joseph Nicephore Niepce - 1826 or 1827. The exact year is disputed and unresolved even at the holding institution: Helmut Gernsheim originally dated the plate to 1826, but accepted 1827 in the third edition of his own history after Harmant and Marillier argued for it in 1967. The Harry Ransom Center's own published materials use both years, sometimes on the same page. > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/nicephore-niepce/niepce-view-from-the-window-at-le-gras/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-13 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Joseph Nicephore Niepce - **Date:** 1826 or 1827. The exact year is disputed and unresolved even at the holding institution: Helmut Gernsheim originally dated the plate to 1826, but accepted 1827 in the third edition of his own history after Harmant and Marillier argued for it in 1967. The Harry Ransom Center's own published materials use both years, sometimes on the same page. - **Medium:** Heliograph: bitumen of Judea, hardened by light and rinsed clear with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum, on a polished pewter plate (tin alloyed with lead, with trace iron, copper and nickel) - **Dimensions:** 16.7 x 20.3 x 0.15 cm (Harry Ransom Center's current published figure); given elsewhere, including by Wikipedia, as 16.2 x 20.2 cm - **Object type:** Photograph - **Period:** French, early nineteenth century - **Current location:** Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A view of rooftops, a pigeon loft and a tree at Niepce's family estate near Chalon-sur-Saone, fixed onto a polished pewter plate by his heliography process in 1826 or 1827, and generally described as the earliest surviving photograph made with a camera. Niepce left it with the English botanist Francis Bauer in 1827 after the Royal Society declined to consider his process; the plate then passed through Bauer's estate, a documented sale in 1884 to Henry Baden Pritchard, an unreturned loan to an 1898 exhibition, and forty years of storage in a London warehouse trunk, before the photo-historian Helmut Gernsheim tracked it down and authenticated it on 14 February 1952.The plate has been at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, since the Gernsheims sold their photographic history collection there in 1963. It is a mirror-like surface that must be tilted to a precise angle to be read at all, which means almost every reproduction anyone has ever seen of 'the first photograph' is actually a photograph of Gernsheim's own 1952 hand-retouched copy print, not of the object itself. A forty-four-year gap between Bauer's death in 1840 and Pritchard's 1884 purchase remains completely undocumented, and the exact year of exposure, 1826 or 1827, is still argued rather than settled even by the holding institution's own publications. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1826 or 1827** Nicephore Niepce `[documented]` (creation) Made at Niepce's family estate, Le Gras, near Chalon-sur-Saone, using his heliography process. The exact year is disputed; see open questions. - **1827** Francis Bauer `[documented]` (gift) Niepce travelled to England in September 1827 to visit his ailing brother Claude, was introduced to Bauer, attempted and failed to place his process before the Royal Society for refusing to disclose his method fully, and left the memoir, this camera plate and a separate contact-printed heliograph in Bauer's keeping before returning to France. - **1827-1840** Francis Bauer, Kew `[documented]` (custody) Bauer inscribed the frame's paper backing with Niepce's name and an account of the process, and exhibited the plate and memoir before the Royal Society on 9 March 1839 to assert Niepce's priority after Daguerre's and Talbot's rival announcements. - **1840-1884** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) Bauer died on 11 December 1840. No owner, location or event is documented for the plate for the following 44 years. This is a genuine, unclosed gap in every source consulted for this record. - **1884-1898** Henry Baden Pritchard, then his widow Mary Pritchard `[documented]` (purchase) Pritchard, editor of Photographic News, bought the memoir, camera plate and contact print together in 1884. He died shortly afterward and the material passed to his widow, Mary Pritchard. From whom Pritchard bought the material is not documented. - **1898** Royal Photographic Society International Exhibition, Crystal Palace `[documented]` (exhibition) The material was shown at this exhibition and, so far as the sources consulted record, was not returned to the Pritchard family afterward, which is the specific reason it then disappears from the public record for over five decades. - **1898-1917** Mary Pritchard `[documented]` (custody) The material remained with the Pritchard family after the 1898 exhibition, though the exact circumstances of its return to family hands after not being returned by the exhibition organisers are not detailed in the sources consulted. - **1917-1951** Pritchard family, in storage `[documented]` (storage) On Mary Pritchard's death in 1917, family belongings including the Niepce material were packed into a trunk and placed in a London warehouse. Around 1950 Gernsheim traced Mary's son, who confirmed the family's earlier loss and distress over the material but said it was no longer in the family's possession. The son died in 1951. - **1951-1952-02-14** Widow of Mary Pritchard's son `[documented]` (rediscovery) After her husband's death in 1951, the son's widow found a 1917 storage receipt among his papers, located and opened the trunk it referred to, found the material still inside, and contacted the Gernsheims. - **1952-02-14-1963** Helmut and Alison Gernsheim `[documented]` (acquisition) Gernsheim received the plate on 14 February 1952, authenticated it by tilting it to the light and matching Bauer's manuscript note against the documented 1827 visit, commissioned a reproduction from Kodak's London research laboratory, and personally retouched the copy print he then released for publication. - **1963-present** Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin `[documented]` (acquisition) The Gernsheims' entire photographic history collection was acquired by the University of Texas at Austin in 1963. Ransom Center publications differ on whether the heliograph itself was included in that purchase or separately donated by Gernsheim afterward; this record has not been able to resolve which. ## Open questions - Is the plate's exposure correctly dated to 1826 or to 1827? Expert opinion has moved at least once and the Ransom Center's own published materials still use both years. - What happened to the plate, memoir and contact print between Francis Bauer's death in 1840 and Henry Baden Pritchard's purchase of them in 1884? No owner, dealer or event is documented for this 44-year span. - From whom did Pritchard buy the material in 1884? No source consulted names a seller or describes the transaction. - Did the original camera exposure run for roughly eight hours, as traditionally stated, or for several days, as a modern experimental reconstruction argues? - Did the University of Texas purchase the heliograph as part of the 1963 Gernsheim Collection sale, or was it separately donated by Helmut Gernsheim afterward? The Ransom Center's own publications state both. - Does any part of the paper Niepce and Bauer attempted to place before the Royal Society in 1827 survive intact, and if so, where is it held today? ## Sources - [1] Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, 'The Niepce Heliograph' (object catalogue page) - [2] Barbara Appelbaum Brown, 'The First Photograph', WAAC Newsletter Vol. 24 No. 3 (September 2002), reprinted in Abbey Newsletter Vol. 26 No. 3 (November 2002) - [3] 'GCI/HRC Research World's First Photograph', Abbey Newsletter Vol. 26 No. 3 (November 2002), reporting the Getty Conservation Institute's 2002-2003 material analysis and new display case - [4] Ransom Center Magazine, 'Introducing the Niepce Heliograph' (20 August 2019) - [5] Harry Ransom Center press release, 'First Photograph to Travel to Europe for First Time in 50 Years' (26 June 2012) - [6] Wikipedia, 'View from the Window at Le Gras'. Tertiary source consolidating the dating dispute, the process description and the bibliography of technical studies. Flagged for replacement with the Ransom Center's own catalogue record and the original Getty and Louvre technical papers. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Helmut Gernsheim'. Tertiary source for Gernsheim's biography and the 1963 University of Texas sale. Flagged for replacement with a Gernsheim biography or the Gernsheim Collection finding aid. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Nicephore Niepce'. Tertiary source for Niepce's biography, the Daguerre partnership terms and the 1839 pension arrangement. Flagged for replacement with a scholarly biography. - [9] Art History Unstuffed, 'The Invention of Photography: Niepce, Part Two', for the detailed Pritchard family chain of ownership and Gernsheim's own account of authenticating the plate by tilting it to the light - [10] Science News, 'Photography at a Crossroads', independently corroborating the Pritchard family chain of ownership and the 1952 rediscovery circumstances - [11] Musee Nicephore Niepce / Archives Niepce, quoting Niepce's own 'Notice sur l'Heliographie' (November 1829) for his own definition of the process - [12] Sotheby's, 'Joseph Nicephore Niepce, 1765-1833', lot essay for a Niepce heliograph sale, for context on the Cardinal d'Amboise group of works - [13] Harmant, Pierre G. and Marillier, Paul, 'Some Thoughts on the World's First Photograph', The Photographic Journal, Vol. 107 No. 4 (April 1967), pp. 130-140. Cited via secondary bibliographies; the original journal article was not directly consulted for this record and should be checked against the primary text. - [14] Wikipedia, 'Francis Bauer'. Tertiary source for Bauer's biography and dates. Flagged for replacement with a Kew Gardens or Natural History Museum archival record. - [15] Victoria and Albert Museum, Collections, 'Le Cardinal d'Amboise, photograph, Niepce, Joseph Nicephore', for the separate Cardinal d'Amboise heliograph object record --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.