Niepce

The photographs are made using heliography — “sun writing,” a term coined by 19th century French photography pioneer Nicéphore Niépce — a technique akin to etching with light-sensitive materials on reflective pewter plates.

A major renovation of the Ransom Center in 2003 created more than 40,000 square feet of public space and a gallery with permanent exhibits of some materials, including a Gutenberg Bible and the Niépce Heliograph, the world’s oldest known surviving photograph.

In 1839, Humboldt was among the first established scientists to embrace the daguerreotype, invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce.

It includes a rare 1826 image by Joseph Nicephore Niepce, the man credited with inventing photography.

Close viewers will note posters for Max Ophuls' film "Lola Montes," released in 1955, the very year "Maigret Sets a Trap" was published; a few may recognize the re-creation of Janine Niepce's 1952 photograph of her father reading "Tintin" to her son in a park.