Born in Charlon-sur-Saône, France in 1765, Joseph Nicéphore Niepce, by the age of thirty, had been a professor at an Oratorian college, a staff officer in the French army, and the Administrator of the district of Nice, France. In 1795, Niepce resigned from his position as administrator of Nice to pursue research with his brother Claude. In August, 1807, the brothers invented an internal combustion engine, the pyréolophore, which ran on powdered fuel. Claude left for Paris, and later went on to London in an attempt to generate interest in the pyréolophore, while Joseph stayed behind.

By 1813, Joseph Niepce, never one to stick with one pursuit for too long, had become fascinated with popular art of lithography. In lithography, an image is placed on a stone and treated so that some areas repel ink and some areas retain ink. Since Niepce himself had...