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Portrait of Cardinal d'Amboise

1826 (printing plate); 1864 (print)
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765–1833) , and Jules Chevrier (French, 1816–1883) Engraved by Isaac Briot (French, 1585–1670)
Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce is counted among the earliest and most important inventors of photography. This print represents one of his key efforts: In 1826, having observed that the organic substance bitumen was light-sensitive, he exposed a plate of the material to the sun through a seventeenth-century engraving of the Cardinal d’Amboise, thereby creating a replica printing matrix through which new prints of the image could be made. Niépce made five such prints in 1827. This example is one of four additional prints made in 1864 by the mayor of Niépce’s hometown, Chalons-sur-Saône, to commemorate the centennial of the inventor’s birth the following year.

Object Details

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