George Sand is portrayed in a three-quarter seated cabinet card with her name George Sand printed in serif type on the front mount below the image, showing the French novelist in her later years in a striking and immediately recognizable costume. Sand sits facing the camera in a wide striped wool poncho-style cape with a dark velvet border, beneath which a dark high-necked dress with a ruffled collar is visible. Her dark hair, lightly touched with gray, is arranged in tight curls close to her head, and she wears small drop earrings and a long tassel pendant at her chest. Her expression is calm and self-possessed, one hand resting at the lower right of the composition.

The wide striped cape is among the most recognizable elements of Sand's late photographic portraits, appearing across multiple studio sittings, and the full format of the cabinet card gives this image considerably more compositional space than the CDV format, showing the cape's full volume and drape across the shoulders and arms. No photographer's imprint is visible on the card.

George Sand (1804–1876), born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, was the most celebrated French female novelist of the nineteenth century, author of over seventy novels including Indiana, Lélia, Consuelo, and the pastoral novels La Mare au Diable and La Petite Fadette. Her adoption of a male pen name, her practice of wearing men's clothing, her public love affairs with Frédéric Chopin and Alfred de Musset, and her advocacy for women's rights and socialist politics made her one of the most controversial and admired public figures in France. Victor Hugo declared at her death that she was a great man.

No photographer's imprint is visible on either face of the card. The reverse bears dealer code FOBAEXZ / 3/09/05 / Eb.