Alexandre-Auguste Ledru-Rollin was the most prominent French left-wing republican of the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849, and this albumen carte-de-visite portrait captures him in his later years, made by E. Flamant at his Paris studio on the Rue Brongniart. Flamant operated at 1 Rue Brongniart beginning in 1866 and had previously served as operator for the Comte Aguado, placing this photograph in the late 1860s, consistent with the inscription on the reverse.

Ledru-Rollin is shown seated in three-quarter view, gazing upward and to his left with a composed expression. He wears a dark frock coat over a waistcoat, a white shirt, and a black bow tie, with white shirt cuffs visible at his wrists. His right hand rests at his knee while his left arm drops loosely at his side. Behind him, a fringed draped table holds a stack of books and an ornate oil lamp with a globe shade, beside a decorative mantel clock, with a heavy velvet curtain completing the studio backdrop.

Ledru-Rollin emerged as one of the leaders of the French Revolution of 1848 and served as Minister of the Interior and on the Executive Commission that year, championing universal male suffrage throughout his career. After leading a failed attempt to impeach President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1849, he was forced into exile in London and did not return to France until the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, after which he was elected to the National Assembly in 1874. Flamant served as photographer to the Chamber of Deputies and Senate and received many prominent republican politicians in his studio, making his portrait of Ledru-Rollin a fitting pairing of subject and photographer.

Inscribed in pencil on the reverse: "Ledru Rollin" and "Alexandre Ledru-Rollin / French Radical Politician," with a further notation in a later hand reading "circa late 60s." The studio imprint reads "E. Flamant, Photographe, 50 Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, Entrée rue Brongniart No. 1, Derrière la Bourse, Paris," with the designation "Ex-Opérateur de Mr. le Comte Aguado" (former operator for the Count Aguado). Catalog notations "3/02/07," "LOCDDY," and "Eb" appear at the lower margin.