The French custom officer, geologist and amateur photographer Jules Alphonse Eugène Itier (1802-1877) was the author of the above photographs, or more precisely these daguerreotypes. The daguerreotype was the earliest and most common technique used by operators between the 1840s and 1850s and produced a unique image on metal. Taken originally in 1844, these images are part of the earliest surviving body of photographic materials of China.
Itier was an official customs officer of a French Embassy to China (1844-1846) and was in charge of studying prices and navigation. The images produced during the mission served the primary function of documenting China, including its land, agricultural, industrial and cultural practices.
In his publication Journal d’un voyage en Chine, Itier defined himself these landscapes as ‘noteworthy points of view’, they appeared as choices selected without any clear knowledge of the place but with the goal to bring back a general picture of the country. Itier’s daguerreotypes were diffused, albeit limitedly, in the forms of reprographic printing techniques (wood engraving and lithography) in French illustrated publications and press.
More information: Jules Itier's works in the collection of the Musée Français de la Photographie