The corpse which you see here is that of M. Bayard, inventor of the process that has just been shown to you. As far as I know this indefatigable experimenter has been occupied for about three years with his discovery.
Thus begins the suicide note of Hippolyte Bayard written on the back of his 1840 self-portrait. His discovery was a photographic process—direct positive photography. Making a discovery would seem to be the most difficult step in the invention process. However, inventions and their inventors are subject to the twists, wiles, and whims of politics. In 1839, Bayard was locked in a neck and neck race with at least two other inventors. In the end Bayard was squeezed out of both commercial success and the history books.
Born in a village north of Paris, Bayard moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the ministry of finance. He devoted his spare time to his secret project, sharing his ideas—in a secret code—only with his brother. By the end of 1838, Bayard had enough photographic drawings made from his direct positive photographic process that he felt confident that 1839 was the year to demonstrate his discovery to the French Academy of Sciences.
However, 1839 proved to be a year of striving through fog for Bayard. He was engulfed and pushed aside by rumors, lies, slick politics, and money.
***
The photographic camera was inspired by the camera obscura (Latin for “dark room”) a visual tool known since 500 BCE in China. It is a box with a pin hole to shine sunlight onto a glass which reflects the image onto another glass for an artist to trace. The camera obscura became a well-known artist’s tool in the 18th and 19th century. In the mid-1700s, a quest began to make the image permanent.
The quest became very competitive in 1839.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was the first to make a photographic image. He invented the heliograph (sun writing) process to fix an image. Niépce was a French aristocrat, scientist, and chemist. He used his family’s wealth to build his own laboratory in the village of Chalon-sur-Saone, south of Dijon and 213 miles southeast of Paris. Niépce had experimented with light sensitive materials since 1816, when, in 1826, Niépce made a crude image with a camera resulting from exposures of at least eight hours or possibly several days. The exposure time seemed to change depending on who asked. However, the image was not permanent, it faded away.
Even though he was far from the scientific intrigue of Paris, Niépce only discussed his invention with his brother. They used a secret code. Shortly after his “secret” success, he was stunned to receive a letter from Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre asking for information on the secret process.
From his first letter, Daguerre carefully cultivated a friendship with Niépce. After three years of exchanging letters, Daguerre made his first trip to Niépce’s lab. On December 14, 1829, they signed a partnership agreement. They collaborated until Niépce died in 1833. From then on, Niépce’s “heliography” system for fixing images became Daguerre’s project alone. He changed the name to Daguerreotype and began expanding on Niépce ideas on exposing tin and copper plates.
Daguerre was a well-known show man in Paris. He painted panoramas and then developed the diorama. He knew how to cultivate the press and the wealthy through rumors and timely leaks. Beginning in 1837, Daguerre began to invite key leaders for private viewing of his work. One of the first was the chief curator of the Louvre. In December 1838, Daguerre invited Dominique François Jean Arago, permanent Secretary of the Academy of Sciences and a respected astronomer.
Arago was so impressed by Daguerre’s work that he decided to announce the discovery at the next meeting of the Academy of Sciences on January 7, 1839. Coincidentally, (or likely not), an editorial appeared in La Gazette de France touting Daguerre’s wonderful discovery to be presented to the Academy the very next day.
Arago did all the talking at the Academy meeting, including an impassioned plea for the French government to buy Daguerre’s invention. No one discussed Daguerre’s methods.
Throughout the spring of 1839, Daguerre invited French government deputies and ministers, and foreign dignitaries like Samual Morse.
Bayard was also busy soliciting support. On March 22, 1839, Bayard showed his pictures to Henri Grévedon, a nationally known painter, miniaturist, engraver and lithographer. Physicist and astronomer Jean-Baptiste Biot visited on behalf of the Academy of Sciences on May 13.
Then a week later Bayard was visited by Dominique François Jean Arago, the man promoting Daguerre to the government. Through trickery, deceit, or silver-tongued polish, Arago somehow convinced Bayard to roll over and play dead—to keep his invention secret.
Why did Bayard agree? In June 1839, the minister of the interior granted Bayard 600 francs to purchase equipment. Or was it hush money? Regardless, on July 14, 1839, Bayard proceeded to exhibit 30 of his photographs in the first public photographic exhibition to benefit the victims of a recent hurricane in Martinique.
Not to be outdone in publicity, Daguerre dramatically sealed the two secrets of his invention in an envelope placed in the custody of the Minister of the Interior with the understanding that it was not to be opened until after the government paid him.
Arago continued his advocacy with the French government, arranging two closed door meetings for members of parliament to see Daguerre’s pictures. Once again, Daguerre failed to explain his process. The elected officials relied on Arago’s eloquent, but incomplete descriptions. Arago himself never fully understood Daguerre’s technique. Daguerre’s secrets remained sealed.
The two chambers of Parliament voted without debate or presentations on July 9 and August 2, 1839. On August 7, the King signed into law lifelong, annual pensions for Daguerre (6000 francs) and for the deceased Niépce’s son (4000 francs).
***
Bayard continued to push his method. In November 1839, he gave a demonstration for the Academy of Beaux Arts which appointed a committee to evaluate Bayard’s invention. The Academy’s report admired the precision of line with the sfumato, the old-master’s technique of shading tone and colors to blend gradually, softening outlines. The report argued that Bayard’s paper photographs were easier to handle than the metal-plate daguerreotype. They concluded by recommending Bayard “to the interest and generosity of the government”
However, the government’s interest and generosity had already been awarded to Daguerre. A year later—October 18, 1840—Hippolyte photographed himself as Le Noyé, the Drowned Man. His suicide note continued from above:
The Government, which has been only too generous to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch has drowned himself. Oh, the vagaries of human life…! He has been at the morgue for several days, and no-one has recognized or claimed him. Ladies and gentlemen, you’d better pass along for fear of offending your sense of smell, for as you can observe, the face and hands of the gentleman are beginning to decay.
Speaking to all of France from beyond the grave, Bayard carefully arranged the image of his naked body to look like he had been fished out of the Seine and was now on display at the Paris morgue—a martyr for his art.
He may not have made the first photograph, but he did create the first photographic hoax: can one truly make a portrait of yourself if you are dead?
However, it was a death by invisibility for Bayard. He wasn’t recognized by the French government until late in his life. A second-class civil servant, he didn’t have the social standing to defend himself. He was dismissed by the French scientific community as an uneducated tinkerer who could not (or would not) explain his own process.
Hippolyte Bayard was shoved out of the history books.
Bayard lived for another five decades working at the Ministry of Finance and continuing his experiments with photography in all methods. He took some 900 photographs in his lifetime using all the mediums invented in the 19th century. He died in 1887.
