Georges Labadie Pilotell, inscribed as such on the reverse, was a French caricaturist who contributed to opposition journals including Le Charivari, Le Bouffon, and Jules Vallès’s La Rue before founding his own paper, La Caricature Politique, in February 1871. The carte de visite was produced by Ch. Reutlinger’s Paris studio at 21 Boulevard Montmartre.

Pilotell stands turned slightly from the camera, one hand resting at his hip with tasseled cords hanging from his waistband. His loosely curling hair is brushed back from a high forehead, and a thin mustache and small chin beard frame his mouth. He wears a dark frock coat open over a buttoned waistcoat, a loosely knotted cravat visible at the collar.

Under the Commune, Pilotell served as a delegate to the Musée du Luxembourg and the Beaux-Arts before being appointed a special police commissioner attached to the Interior delegation, a role that ended in his dismissal that April over accusations of excessive conduct in carrying out arrests. After the Commune’s fall he escaped to London, where he was condemned to death in absentia in 1874 and remained in exile, working as an illustrator, for the rest of his life.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil, “George Labadie Pilotell / French Artist,” over the printed studio imprint of Ch. Reutlinger, Photographe, 21 Boulevard Montmartre, Paris, noting the studio’s Premier Prix at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, with the archival notations “3/02/07,” “LDPE32,” and “Eb.”