Editing Nicéphore Niépce (section)

== Biography ==

=== Early life ===
[[File:Niepces birthplace at Chalon s.S.jpg|thumb|Niépce's birthplace at [[Chalon-sur-Saône]], with a plaque in his memory]]
[[File:Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.jpg|thumb|Niépce {{ca.}} 1795]]
Niépce was born in [[Chalon-sur-Saône]], Saône-et-Loire, where his father was a wealthy lawyer. His older brother Claude (1763–1828) was also his collaborator in research and invention, but died half-mad and destitute in England, having squandered the family wealth in pursuit of non-opportunities for the ''[[Pyréolophore]]''. Niépce also had a sister and a younger brother, Bernard.<ref name="AllArt" /><ref name="Ferragus" /><ref name="BookRags" />

Nicéphore was baptized Joseph but adopted the name Nicéphore, in honour of [[Nikephoros I of Constantinople|Saint Nicephorus]] the ninth-century [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople|Patriarch of Constantinople]], while studying at the [[Oratory of Jesus|Oratorian college]] in [[Angers]]. At the college he learned science and the [[experimental method]], rapidly achieving success and graduating to work as a professor of the college.

=== Military career ===
Niépce served as a staff officer in the French army under [[Napoleon]], spending years in Italy and on the island of Sardinia, but ill health forced him to resign, whereupon he married Agnes Romero and became the Administrator of the district of [[Nice]] in post-revolutionary France. In 1795, he resigned as administrator of Nice to pursue scientific research with his brother Claude. One source reports his resignation to have been forced due to his unpopularity.<ref name="AllArt" /><ref name="Ferragus" /><ref name="BookRags" />

=== Scientific research ===
In 1801 the brothers returned to the family's estates in Chalon to continue their scientific research, and where they were united with their mother, their sister and their younger brother Bernard. Here they managed the family estate as independently wealthy gentlemen-farmers, raising beets and producing  sugar.<ref name="AllArt">{{cite web |url=http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography13.html |title=History of Art: History of Photography |access-date=17 August 2010 |archive-date=26 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221126223312/http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography13.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Ferragus">{{cite web |url=http://ferragus.blog.lemonde.fr/2008/10/21/le-pyreolophore-de-nicephore/ |title=Le Pyréolophore de Nicéphore |work=Ferragus |access-date=17 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720204106/http://ferragus.blog.lemonde.fr/2008/10/21/le-pyreolophore-de-nicephore/ |archive-date=20 July 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="BookRags">{{cite web |url=http://www.bookrags.com/research/joseph-nicphore-nipce-scit-05123456/ |title=Research Joseph Nicéphore Niépce – Science and Its Times |website=BookRags.com |access-date=17 August 2010 |archive-date=9 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309085239/http://www.bookrags.com/research/joseph-nicphore-nipce-scit-05123456/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Claude Niépce ===
In 1827 Niépce journeyed to England to visit his seriously ill elder brother Claude Niépce, who was now living in [[Kew]], near London. Claude had descended into delirium and squandered much of the family fortune chasing inappropriate business opportunities for the ''Pyréolophore''.<ref name="AllArt" />

=== Death ===
Nicéphore Niépce died of a stroke on 5 July 1833, financially ruined such that his grave in the cemetery of Saint-Loup de Varennes was financed by the municipality. The cemetery is near the family house where he had experimented and had made the world's oldest surviving photographic image.<ref name="Ferragus" />

=== Descendants ===
His son Isidore (1805–1868) formed a partnership with Daguerre after his father's death and was granted a government pension in 1839 in return for disclosing the technical details of Nicéphore's heliogravure process.<ref name="AllArt" /><ref name="Ferragus" />

A cousin, [[Abel Niepce de Saint-Victor|Claude Félix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor]] (1805–1870), was a chemist and was the first to use albumen in photography. He also produced photographic engravings on steel. During 1857–1861, he discovered that uranium salts emit a form of radiation that is invisible to the human eye.<ref>In 1861, Niépce de Saint-Victor concluded that [[uranium]] salts emitted an invisible radiation that caused photographic plates to fog. From pages 34–35 of: Niépce de Saint-Victor (1861) [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3010v/f33.image "Cinquième mémoire sur une nouvelle action de la lumière"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161013220328/http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3010v/f33.image |date=13 October 2016 }} (Fifth memoir on a new action of light), ''Comptes rendus'' ... , vol. 53, pages 33–35.<br /> "... cette activité persistante ... ne peut mème pas être de la phosphorescence, car elle ne durerait pas si longtemps, d'après les expériences de M. Edmond Becquerel; il est donc plus probable que c'est un rayonnement invisible à nos yeux, comme le croit M. Léon Foucault, ...."<br /> "... this persistent activity ... cannot be due to phosphorescence, for it [phosphorescence] would not last so long, according to the experiments of Mr. [[A.E. Becquerel|Edmond Becquerel]]; it is thus more likely that it is a radiation that is invisible to our eyes, as Mr. [[Léon Foucault]] believes, ...."</ref>

Photojournalist [[Janine Niépce]] (1921–2007) is a distant relative.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bouzet |first1=Ange-Dominique |title=Critique Maligne Janine Niepce |url=https://www.liberation.fr/culture/2000/09/06/maligne-janine-niepce_336189/ |access-date=6 October 2024 |publisher=Libération |date=6 September 2000}}</ref>