The photographic collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, which go back as far as the nineteenth century, have attracted little attention as an area of the history of the Museum’s collections. This, in spite of recent efforts by the Museum’s library to valorize parts of these collections in the historical narrative of the institution. These images invite us to trace the history of their constitution, which allows us not only to establish how early photography was used within the Museum but also to indicate the multiple paths taken by the development of photographic techniques within this institution. Far from being limited to the history of a single, isolated collection, these photographs offer new perspectives on the history of scientific practices in disciplines less well-known for their use of photography (mammalogy, plant physiology, mineralogy). Thus, they raise more epistemological questions, in particular the relationship of naturalists to objectivity and to the notion of scientific truth through images.