Daguerreotype
Invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839, daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by 1860 with new, less expensive processes yielding more readily viewable images. In the late 20th century, there was a revival of daguerreotypy by a small number of photographers interested in making artistic use of early photographic processes.
Paris under Louis-Philippe
Paris was the birthplace of modern photography. A process for capturing images on plates coated with light-sensitive chemicals had been discovered by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 in rural France. After this death in 1833, the process was refined by the Paris artist and entrepreneur Louis Daguerre, who had invented the Paris Diorama. His new method of photography, called the daguerrotype, was publicly announced to a joint meeting of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris on 19 August 1839. Daguerre gave the rights to the invention to the French nation, which offered them for free to any user in the world. In exchange, Daguerre received a pension from the French state. The daguerrotype became the most common method of photography during the 1840s and 1850s.