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View from the Window at Le Gras, Nicéphore Niépce, 1827: rooftops and a courtyard seen from a high window, very grainy
Masters1820s–1840s

View from the Window at Le Gras

Nicéphore Niépce, 1827. The view from a high window of his estate at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and the oldest photograph that survives.

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PHOTOGRAPHER
Nicéphore Niépce · 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833
DATE AND PLACE
Between 4 June and 18 July 1827 · Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France
PROCESS
Heliography: bitumen of Judea on a pewter plate, 16.2 × 20.2 cm
EXPOSURE
About eight hours by the usual estimate; one researcher found it ran for several days
SEEN AT
Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
RIGHTS
Public domain · record on Wikimedia Commons

Read the frame

01

How it was made

A camera obscura threw the view onto a plate coated with bitumen. Where light fell, the bitumen hardened; the rest was washed away with oil of lavender and white petroleum.

02

Sun on both sides

Light falls on buildings facing opposite ways, a sign that the plate was exposed for hours, not minutes.

03

A retouched copy

The picture here is Helmut Gernsheim's enhanced copy, made around 1952. The plate itself is far harder to read.

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Facts from Wikipedia, 'View from the Window at Le Gras' and 'Nicéphore Niépce', and the file's record on Wikimedia Commons, read 2026.10.16.