French National Library
Snaps Up Historic Photo
The world’s first-known photograph was auctioned March 21 at Sotheby’s in Paris after being stored in a private home for the last 50 years. Joseph Nicéphore Niepce’s faded photograph of a 17th-century Dutch pen-and-ink drawing of a boy and a horse sold for 450,000 euros ($398,000 U.S.) to the French National Library, after the government ruled it had to stay in the country, a Sotheby’s spokeswoman told Reuters.
Dating from 1825, the print and a set of letters from Niepce to his son detailing the techniques used to create it were obtained by a Parisian bookseller and his wife in the 1950s. It was unknown to experts, who had believed the first photograph was taken by Niepce in 1826 or 1827. The auctioner, André Jammes, runs an antique bookshop on Paris’ Left Bank and has been collecting old photos since the 1950s. He garnered some fame in 1999 when he sold the first part of his collection in London for $10.6 million.
The auction was made possible by the government’s revision of an antiquated auction law, which opened up the French market to international houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
Posted March 25, 2002.
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