Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat celebrated for constructing the Suez Canal across the Isthmus of Suez, is depicted here in a carte-de-visite portrait made by Trinquart at his Paris studio in 1870. Trinquart operated at 10, Rue de Port-Mahon from around 1869 until 1871, placing this image squarely within the final months of the studio's activity under his name. Trinquart died on January 31, 1871, making the 1870 date on the reverse one of his last documented portrait sessions.

De Lesseps is shown seated in a three-quarter pose, his right hand raised to his cheek in a contemplative gesture and his left resting loosely in his lap. He wears a dark frock coat over a matching waistcoat, a white shirt, and a black bow tie, and a fringed textile accessory drapes across the arm of his chair. His white hair and full mustache are rendered with sharp tonal clarity against a plain graduated ground.

Born on November 19, 1805, in Versailles, de Lesseps served as a French diplomat and engineer and is celebrated for constructing the Suez Canal, completed in 1869, just one year before this portrait was made. Trinquart exhibited at the Société française de photographie in 1861, 1863, and 1865, and at the Exposition Universelle of 1867, and was known for his collections of portraits of notable figures from the clergy, academies of medicine, and sciences.

The reverse bears the printed imprint "Trinquart / Breveté / 10, Rue de Port-Mahon / en face la Rue d'Antin / Paris" above two heraldic vignettes, with the handwritten inscription "de Lesseps" in ink below, and the printed date "1870."