Nicéphore Niépce died before photography paid, his partner named it the daguerreotype, and France gave Niépce's son the smaller pension

In 1827 Nicéphore Niépce made the oldest surviving photograph taken with a camera, a view from a window at his house, Le Gras. On 4 January 1829 he formed a partnership with Louis Daguerre, owner of the Diorama in Paris. Niépce died in 1833 and his share passed to his son, Isidore. Daguerre kept working, made the process practical, and named it the daguerreotype, holding the invention to be his own. On 15 June 1839 the Minister of the Interior put a bill to the Chamber of Deputies for the state to buy the process and give it to the public. The inventors had asked for 2,000,000 francs. The law gave life pensions instead: 6,000 francs a year to Daguerre and 4,000 francs a year to Niépce's son, with half of each pension passing to their widows. The process spread worldwide under Daguerre's name. Niépce's supporters later used his 1827 plate as proof of his part in the invention. The plate passed through private hands in Britain. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin bought it in 1963 with the Gernsheim Collection, and it is there in 2026.