Antoine Lumière was born in 1840 in the Haute-Saône departement,coming from modest stock. After having been an apprentice to a sign painter in Paris, he settled in Besançon as a painter, then as a photographic portrait artist; Auguste and Louis were born there in 1862 and 1864 respectively. But his actual rise began in Lyons, where the family settled in 1870. In 1882, he switched from a small-scale industry to a large-scale production thanks to the success of the snapshot photographic plate invented by his son Louis. He devoted the rest of his life to painting and died in Paris on April 2, 1911.