The Avenue de la Grande Armée, with the Arc de Triomphe visible in the distance, is documented here in a large-format albumen print mounted on card stock and bearing the printed series title "Paris et ses Environs" along the right edge. Destruction along the avenue dating to the period between January 1871 and late May 1871 was attributed to artillery fire from Prussian and then Versailles government troops. The photograph belongs to a category of documentary work that followed the suppression of the Paris Commune, sold individually or in albums and showing an entirely devastated Paris.

Shell-damaged façades line both sides of the avenue, their upper stories visibly pockmarked and partially collapsed, with scaffolding erected against the right-hand block. A temporary wooden guard shelter occupies the left foreground, where a group of uniformed men in dark coats and kepis stand at ease; to the right, workers in civilian dress attend to stonework at a makeshift barricade remnant. The broad unpaved surface of the avenue stretches toward the Arc de Triomphe, which appears intact on the central axis.

The Avenue de la Grande Armée marks the boundary between the 16th and 17th arrondissements of Paris, with the tunnel de l'Étoile under the Arc de Triomphe directly linking the avenue des Champs-Élysées to it. The presence of uniformed personnel and active repair works dates the image to the immediate post-Commune period of summer 1871, when the French Army held the western quarters and reconstruction had already begun.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil at upper center: "Avenue de la grande armée" ("Avenue of the Grande Armée"), with catalog notations at lower center reading "1/27/08 COLACX1 Eb." No photographer's imprint is present.