picture-perfect (10. 072)

On this day 1839 following assurances of a lifetime’s pension for himself and business partner Nicéphore Niépce and a seat on the National Academy of Design, the government of France published the complete technical details of the daguerreotype process—previously withheld over fears of others counterfeiting the process or stealing credit for the research and experimentation of set building, background painter and inventor of the diorama Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre—gifting it “free to the world.”