Jules Alphonse Eugène Itier Itier was born in a family of customs officers. His mother - Zoé Dubois – and his father Joseph-Paul Itier gave birth to give children; Jules Itier was the fourth child. In 1809, he began his studies in Paris, graduated in 1819 in Marseille (South of France), and entered the customs administration under the protection of his uncle Dubois-Aymé, who was a former école polytechnique student and member of the 1799–1801 Egyptian expedition. Due to his function, Jules Itier travelled a lot across France. This period marked his growing curiosity towards the Sciences. He joined several “societies savants”, which allowed his research in Geology, Agronomy, Natural sciences to be rewarded.
In 1842, he embarked on several missions leading to Senegal, Guyana and the West Indies so as to promote French commercial and colonial expansion. A year later, in Saint-Louis of Senegal, he noted in his logbook: "I received my daguerreotype." From that moment onwards, Itier pursued his activities of daguerreotypist-traveller visualizing his explorations.
From 1843 to 1846, Itier accompanied the diplomat Théodore-Marie de Lagrené’s Embassy to China (1844-1846). Similarly to other embassies, Lagrené’s goals were not only to reinforce economic and political ties, preserve French religious and moral interests with China and promote France’s prestige vis-à-vis the power relationship with Britain, but also to gather drawings (notably commissioned to local Chinese artisans) and photographs by Itier.
Upon his return, he published his “Journal of a trip to China” in three volumes, in which he recorded his studies and observations, while contextualized his own shots. From his various trips, he brought back little-known products, such as rubber, gutta-percha or sorghum. He donated a fair amount of porcelain from China to the Sèvres factory, as well as valuable information about the manufacturing processes.
He entered the Legion of Honour at the class of Chevalier (Knight) in 1843, then was appointed Officer in 1846. He married that same year to Henriette de Brémond in Grenoble, and had two children: Henriette and Paul-Jules. Itier was appointed director of customs in 1848, moved to Montpellier, and pursued his career until 1857. The same year he moved to Marseille. Involved in politics from 1848 to the late 1860s, he retired in 1866 and moved back to Montpellier. He died in Montpellier on October 13, 1877; he was 75 years old.
