Louise Michel, identified by name on both the recto and reverse, was the schoolteacher, writer, and revolutionary who became one of the most prominent figures of the Paris Commune, later known as the “Red Virgin” for her lifelong radicalism. This carte de visite was produced by the Lopez studio at 40 Rue Condorcet, Paris.

She is shown standing full length, hands clasped loosely at her waist over a dark, heavily trimmed jacket with a beaded collar and fringed scarf knotted at the throat, her long skirt gathered in draped folds. Her dark hair is parted center and falls loose past her shoulders, and she faces the camera directly with a steady, unsmiling expression against a painted studio backdrop.

A schoolteacher in Montmartre who refused to swear allegiance to Napoleon III, Michel became a leading figure of the Commune, serving as an ambulancière and combatant on the barricades and helping organize the women’s vigilance committee of the 18th arrondissement. Arrested after the Commune’s fall, she was deported to the New Caledonia penal colony in 1873, where she embraced anarchism and supported the Kanak population before returning to France under the 1880 amnesty.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil, “Louise Michel,” over the printed studio imprint “Lopez, 40 Rue Condorcet, Paris,” with the archival notations “3/29/10,” “LBCAFG1,” and “Eb.”