Maison natale des frères Lumière, Birth house in Besançon, France

The Maison natale des frères Lumière is a four-storey building of pale squared stone at 1 place Victor-Hugo, in the La Boucle district of Besançon. Its ground floor has two round-arched openings, the right one now a shopfront with a curved glass window. A white stone plaque between the first-floor windows bears a bronze portrait medallion and the words "MAISON NATALE DES FRÈRES LUMIÈRE".

Auguste Lumière was born here in 1862 and his brother Louis in 1864, before the family moved to Lyon. There, the brothers later developed the Cinématographe, the first system for projecting moving images on a screen.

The square outside was renamed Place Victor-Hugo in 1885; it was Place Saint-Quentin when the family lived here. Charles Nodier was born on the same square in 1780 and Victor Hugo in 1802, and Gustave Courbet lived in Besançon for part of the 19th century. The bronze medallion on the facade identifies the house.

The building sits on a central square in the downtown area and is easy to reach on foot. Since it is a private residence, visitors can only view the exterior and the commemorative plaque from the street.

The plaque on the facade, with a bronze portrait medallion and the words "MAISON NATALE DES FRÈRES LUMIÈRE", marks the apartment where Auguste was born on 19 October 1862 and Louis on 5 October 1864. The family left for Lyon in 1870 after the birth of their sister Jeanne.