Gustave Louis Maroteau (1849–1875) was a French journalist condemned to death for his participation in the Paris Commune of 1871. This carte-de-visite is printed on albumen paper and mounted on a standard card, with the front imprint of Thiébault at 31, Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle, Paris. The Thiébault studio was active at this address from the second half of the 1850s onward. The print was republished or distributed by E. Gatel, photographe éditeur, operating as successor to E. Bondonneau at the Galerie de Valois, 173, Palais-Royal, Paris, whose purple stamp appears prominently on the reverse.

Maroteau is shown in a close-cropped bust portrait against a plain light ground, his voluminous, loosely curling hair swept back from a broad forehead. A full beard, darker at the chin and lighter at the jaw, frames a steady, direct gaze beneath heavy brows. He wears a dark frock coat over a white shirt, the collar open and finished with a loosely tied bow cravat, conveying the informal, bohemian bearing of a young radical journalist rather than the formality of a studio sitter seeking bourgeois respectability.

Maroteau was condemned to death in March 1871 by the War Council of Versailles for his role in the Commune, particularly for an article demanding the execution of the Archbishop of Paris as an hostage. His sentence was commuted and he was deported to New Caledonia in 1872, where he died of tuberculosis in 1875. Victor Hugo intervened on his behalf in February 1872, writing to Maroteau while he was still held at the military hospital in Versailles, though the death sentence was only commuted to perpetual hard labor.

The reverse bears the purple publisher's stamp of E. Gatel, photographe éditeur, breveté s.g.d.g., prédécesseur et successeur de E. Bondonneau, Galerie de Valois, 173 (Palais-Royal), Paris, along with the preprinted cliché number field, left blank. Two inscriptions appear in ink above the stamp: a hasty cursive reading "Gve Maroteau" (Gustave Maroteau) and a more deliberate penciled hand reading "Gustave Louis Maroteau (1849–1875) / Paris / Commune." A catalog notation "3/21/07" and the letters "LOFGEZ" and "Eb" appear in pencil at the bottom margin.