On May 16, 1871, Communards pulled down the Vendôme Column in one of the defining acts of the Paris Commune, and this cabinet card captures the aftermath from a vantage point within the square. The column had been built by Napoleon I in the first decade of the nineteenth century as a glorification of the victorious French army at the Battle of Austerlitz, its shaft wrapped in bas-reliefs cast from the bronze of 250 captured Russian cannons. The photograph was taken shortly after the toppling, with the squared façades of Place Vendôme's uniform classical arcaded buildings filling the full arc of the background. No photographer's imprint is visible on the mount.

The image shows the shattered column lying in massive bronze and stone fragments across the open cobbled square, with small groups of onlookers gathered at the rubble pile to the right. The stone pedestal remains standing at left, stripped of its shaft, while a stacked pyramid of stacked rifles stands unattended in the foreground and an ornate gas street lamp rises at center. A woman in a full dark skirt and a wheel of a horse-drawn cart are visible at the margins, lending scale to the destruction.

The Commune viewed the column, a 130-foot-tall pillar topped with a statue of Napoleon in Roman garb and ringed with bronze plates from conquered armies, as a symbol of imperialism. Six days after the toppling, the Versailles assembly voted to rebuild it, and by 1873 an identical copy had been reconstructed. Photographs documenting the destruction were among the most sought-after souvenirs of the Commune period and circulated widely in cabinet card form.

Inscribed in ink on the reverse in a period cursive hand: "Colonne Vendôme" (Vendôme Column). Additional notations in pencil at the lower margin read "1/20/13," "COLBXZ," and "Eb." A faint partial stamp appears at center reverse.