In the early 19th century English scientists Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy used silver nitrate in an attempt to transfer a painted image onto leather or paper. A French inventor, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, is credited with having made the first successful photograph in 1826. French painter Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre continued Niépce’s pioneering work and in 1839, after Niépce's death, announced an improved version of the process, which he called the daguerreotype.