Louise Bonenfant served as a cantinière and artillery gunner (pointeuse) with the Federated artillery during the Paris Commune of 1871. This CDV was produced by E. Appert at 24, Rue Taitbout, Paris, and bears the word "Reproduction" on the front, indicating it belongs to Appert's documented series of prisoner portraits made in the aftermath of the Commune's suppression. Appert, a Parisian portrait photographer, gained exclusive access to a makeshift prison at Versailles and made portraits of individual prisoners, who ceded the rights to their likenesses.

Bonenfant is depicted in a three-quarter seated pose, her gaze directed slightly away from the lens with a guarded, composed expression. She wears a dark military-style kepi cap set back on her head, her dark hair pinned at the nape. Her outer garment is a dark, fitted jacket or mantle adorned with rows of small buttons along the lapels and sleeves, with a cord-and-button closure at the cuff, and a belted waist, attire consistent with the semi-military dress of women who served alongside Federal forces.

Appert issued many of the portraits as cartes-de-visite but also integrated the Communards' faces into a series of propagandistic photomontages entitled "Crimes of the Commune." Appert, a Parisian photographer accredited to the Tribunal de la Seine, photographed Communards incarcerated in Versailles and used these portraits in photomontages, making this series among the earliest sustained uses of photography for political and judicial ends. Examples of Bonenfant's portrait are held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The reverse carries a printed studio imprint for "E. Appert, Peintre Photographe, 24, Rue Taitbout, Paris," with the designations "Photographe du Corps Législatif" and "Photographe de la Magistrature," and four silver medal medallions dated 1853, 1855, 1859, and 1867. Inscribed in pencil at the top of the reverse: "Louise Bonenfant / Cantinière" ("Louise Bonenfant / canteen worker"). Additional handwritten notations read "8/01/07" and "LOBAEX," with a penciled "Eb" to the right.