Niépce's bellows camera

OBJECT TYPE: Camera
MANUFACTURER: Unidentified Maker
NATIONALITY: French
PLACE MANUFACTURED: France, Paris
OBJECT NAME VARIATION: First bellows camera
PRODUCTION DATES: ca 1840s
FILM TYPE: dag plate
IMAGE SIZE: 4½ x 5-3/4in.
SIGNIFICANT FEATURE: first bellows camera
FUNCTIONAL TYPE: daguerreotype

NOTES:
  The following is an excerpt from a letter accompanying the camera:
  "Dear Sir: The two pieces of apparatus that I am selling you come from
  the house that Mr. Isidore Niépce occupied at Guery, rue de Fosses.
  They were given to my husband who, in his youth, knew Mr. Niépce.
  Yours very truly, (signed) J. Bertenet Actually I got three things:
  1.The present piece of apparatus 2.Folding legs box of a model current
  is around 1868 3.Holder for 1/4 plate of Ribebrury with one plate in
  side signed "Ribebrury." This apparatus coming from Mr. [Isadore]
  Niépce, the son of Mr. Niépce, the inventor of photography. This
  apparatus was offered to me by Mr. Caillat at the time I organized
  the exposition for the centennial of the death of Niépce at Chalon-sur
  -Saone in 1933. The lens holder, still in existence, is of the
  earliest lens for Daguerreotype photography of which the tube was
  screwed on a piece attached on this holder. The apparatus has a
  bellows, each fold of this being held in place by a piece of wire.
  This apparatus must have been built as per indications from Isadore
  Niépce at the earliest time of the Daguerreotype in order to try to
  apply a bellows to this apparatus, his father having already found the
  application (of said bellows)to the darkroom. (See the museum at
  Chalon-sur-Saone.)It was an experiment which found no immediate ..."

OBJECT IDENTIFIER: 9999.00005