A formal bust-length portrait of Léon Gambetta, the French republican statesman and a founding architect of the Third Republic, presented as an albumen silver carte de visite produced by the studio of Étienne Carjat at 10, Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette, Paris. The studio occupied that address from approximately 1869 through the 1880s, and the back-mark's reference to medals from London (1861), Paris (1863–1864), Berlin (1865), and the Exposition Universelle of 1867 places this example squarely within the early years of the Lorette period, most likely the early to mid-1870s. The composition is set within a vignette oval, a format characteristic of Carjat's celebrity portraiture.

Gambetta is posed in three-quarter profile facing left, dressed in a lounge coat worn open over a buttoned waistcoat, a white turndown collar, and a loosely tied cravat with wide lapels. His curly, somewhat disheveled hair, full beard, and strong profile are rendered with the crisp tonal contrast for which Carjat's albumen prints were noted. The background is a plain dark oval field with no studio props or furnishings, consistent with Carjat's deliberate avoidance of decorative ornament.

Gambetta was one of the leading figures of the republican movement and, during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, served simultaneously as minister of the interior and minister of war in the government of national defense. He later served briefly as premier in 1881–1882, championing democracy, national unity, universal suffrage, and the separation of church and state. Carjat was celebrated for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary, and artistic Parisian figures, making this a pairing of two of the most recognizable names of Second Empire and early Third Republic France.

Inscribed in pencil at the top of the reverse: "Leon Gambetta 1838–1882." A large cursive signature reading "Gambetta" appears in ink at the lower portion of the reverse, with a notation reading "3/18/07 COLAX2 Eb" and a partial printed label reading "MARION" at the base. The studio imprint on the front reads: "ETIENNE CARJAT & CIE PHOT. 10. RUE NTre De DE LORETTE."